2011

Today marked the half way point of the second week, and boy was today fun. So to begin the class we discussed these two very interesting articles. The first was about the mimic octopus and the second was about ecotourism and its effects on great whites. The mimic octopus is a magnificent creature which has evolved itself and adapted over...

Today the guys are dissecting two well-known species of fish. Today's dissections have been injected with latex, allowing them detailed investigation of the anatomy of the circulatory systems. The guys are doing a good job staying on task and resisting the temptation of their juvenile instincts to mutilate the fish that were sacrificed for the good of science and...

Today's class consisted of a lot of group work. First, we started off with a class discussion about coral reefs and the overpopulation of lion fish. Lion fish came about the east coast of the United States in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew damaged an aquarium. Using their fan-like fins, or "mane," they scare other fish and...

Today we discussed two articles that at first made us think...how is this of any importance to humanity? And we did discuss that although, this quite specific rewearch may not seem to have a big picture idea driving it, it is a stepping stone for greater ideas of research. Which then drived our discussion towards a group project in...

On the seventh day of Marine Biology, I learned just how fun and insightful the class could be without really going to the real hands-on stuff. We started off with the 2nd round of the class led article discussions. Andrew and Colin started things off by talking about their article concerning how invasive species of Parrotfish contribute to the...

Today we learned about Parrot fish grazing coral and the grouper as a biocontroler of the invasive lionfish. These two articles were very interesting because they dictly related to what we would be doing in the BVI. We will be rouding up the invasive lionfish and we will be studying coral. We also did an exercise that involved...

Today we discussed ways to protect and conserve reefs through the use of native predators as "biocontrol." One example we mentioned were the groupers, which have been known to prey on invasive species such as lionfish. The only problem is that groupers are often overhunted; which means that they cannot significantly keep (and maybe even extirpate) lionfish populations in...

People of marine biology class, I bring you good fortune; no longer will I stand alone in class. Today my brothers I formed a bond that we never be broken; our minds our now one. Let us rejoice, for the day is near that our me voyage to the Land of Gorda. United we stand as brothers, under our...

Today we firstly did the articles. The first article was about predation on the coral by parrotfish. This was another case of the article, while producing results, wouldn't contribute to the solving of the problem itself that is the disappearance of coral. The second article was interesting, the "bio-control" of lionfish via grouper. I had no previous knowledge of...