Week 3: FGCU Vester Field Station

Week 3 was spent at the FGCU Vester Marine Station. We focused mainly on the estuarine area and Estero Bay. Thursday was spent studying different areas of Imperial River and Estero Bay. We went to 4 different sites and took water quality data, water samples, and observed the surroundings, organisms, and anthropogenic influences. The first site was Riverside Park, then we went to River Park second, Fishtrap Bay and then our final site was New Pass. At each site we took the CTD readings, found light penetration using the secchi disk, and went snorkeling to look at the different forms of vegetation and organisms. My favorite site to snorkel was New Pass. We were snorkeling in seagrass beds that consisted of Thalassia sp. and Halodule sp. I found a couple sea stars, tunicates, sea slugs, and plenty of different fishes. There were also some bottlenose dolphins playing in the water a little ways away from us. Dr. Douglass had us take pictures of the surface from a meter under the water. I got the pictures from sites 3 and 4 and there is a huge difference in color. The picture from Fishtrap Bay is very dark and brown and the picture from New Pass is blue and light. These sites weren’t too far from each other but the color variation was so different. I think New Pass had such a blue color because we were very close to the inlet leading into the Gulf of Mexico. Fishtrap Bay was farther back and there were a lot more mangroves surrounding the area. There also wasn’t much for vegetation like there was in New Pass. 

Site 3: Fishtrap Bay

Site 4: New Pass

 

Wednesday was the shark fishing day. We were trying to catch sharks to take a small biopsy to test the mercury concentration in their tissue. Anything above 0.3 ppm is considered to be bad and shouldn’t be consumed by humans. Many of the sharks that have been studied have numbers way higher than that. I was very excited because I love sharks and would love to work with them and study them once I am finished with school. We let out 10 lines in the Gulf of Mexico and unfortunately caught nothing. The second group caught 3 sharks (2 nurse sharks and 1 blacktip). Though envious, I was very excited for them. The process of baiting the lines and being out in the field was a lot of fun. I also got to spend the day on the Gulf of Mexico and in the sun.

If we got done early enough, a group of us would go out to the beach and go snorkeling. The beach in Bonita Springs was very nice. There we seashells everywhere. We also saw a ton of nine-armed sea stars. A lot of them were washed up on the beach and near the shore. I thought that was very strange. They were all along the beach. I was really surprised that they were so close to shore. In Pensacola we don’t get hardly any marine organisms close to shore like that. I was talking about it with one of the students working at Vester and he said that there was a recent news article that came out about it and said it was unusual. They weren’t sure why it was happening. We, of course, put them back into the water and tried to get them out deeper so they wouldn’t wash back up on the shore. I had never seen a nine-armed sea star in person before so it was very exciting to see so many. We also found a ton of sea slugs, Florida fighting conchs, and even a couple whelks. I honestly wouldn’t have known what all of those were if we didn’t do all of the shell identifying with Dr. Locascio on Tuesday.

I had a great time at Vester. All of the professors and staff were so much fun and I really feel like I learned a lot of new stuff. It was so interesting to learn about the area especially because I am not from Florida so most of it was new to me. It was also great to be out in the field every day and in the water. I can definitely see myself heading back to that area someday.