Cyrene in a brief...

A day out for field research! Siti, my fellow colleague, frequently monitors Cyrene on her shading experiments. A small group of us headed out (braving the sun and rain) to lend her hand. I was also there to look for the giant clam on Cyrene.


A picture of everyone hard at work!

After which, I had some free time to look around Cyrene. The seagrass covers have really reduced a fair bit! I noticed more 'trenches' and I literally was walking on soft sediments that I got waist deep! :(

It was, however, nice to see the knobblies still doing well despite the lower seagrass covers. I didn't get to see any of the larger stars, so I hope that they are still here!


An uncommon sight - the pipefish amongst the seagrass... I personally don't see many of them as I used to... Perhaps they are very well-camouflaged too...


The white Salmacis urchins hiding themselves with bits and pieces...


Juvenile crabs huddling with a blade of seagrass...


Elbow crabs laying still...


An interesting sight! Can you see the bird in the middle? My camera isn't as powerful as Ria's one, so this is my best shot of the raptor perched on the reef. She had previously seen them on the reefs around Singapore. I wonder what they catch on the reefs or is this a pit stop for them?


As I surveyed around, a fish trap caught my eye and I went to check if there was anything in it. The poor fish seemed to have been stuck for a while so my colleague and I tried to free it. Fortunately the fish found its way out of the hole we enlarged but I hope it'll be alright as the mouth parts appear to have been injured. :( The trap seemed abandoned and damaged so we decided to flatten it...


Despite that fishing and trapping appear to have little impacts on our reefs, it is still saddening to know how these marine life died because of our negligence. It was quite a sad day for me on Cyrene... I shall talk about it another time...

Cheers!

Semakau with Team Seagrass

On the Sunday that just passed, I joined Team Seagrass on its monitoring trip! It's been a while since I've been out to the field or monitored with Team Seagrass. I'm glad that there was still space! :)

Upon arriving on the pier, I met the family (Philip, Catherine and Lucas) whom I had sold a book to! After chatting a while, I found out that they have been reading my blog posts too! It was nice to see the whole family joined on Team Seagrass and even the Mega Marine Surveys, to have a better look of our shores. The trip had quite a fair bit of newbies who joined us for the first time. It's heartening to see enthusiastic youths and volunteers joining us for monitoring.

On arriving Semakau, the weather held up and the skies were clear. I had unfortunately not brought a cap, hence got sunburnt. The first thing that caught my attention on the shores were these white 'styrofoam' bits! They were floating everywhere! Though small, these white bits play important roles on the seagrass meadows.


These white bits are in fact, the male pollen packets from the tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides). My first experience of this 'spawning' was in Bintan and second at Labrador beach in Singapore. The mechanisms of such spawning are rather fascinating. The male fruiting bodies of E. acoroides are found at the base of the plant, and since these pollen packets are light (and negatively buoyant), they float straight up to the surface!

In this next photo, you see the female flower. Low tides are essential in aiding the process of male pollen meeting the female flowers. As the tides recedes, the waves causes the female flowers to bob up and down on the surface. As the male pollen packets floats with the waves, the female flowers will 'capture' the packets via the bobbing action! Very cool huh! I didn't manage to get a video as the tide went down too quickly...


As the tide recedes, the pollen packs gets stuck on the blades of E. acoroides.


I didn't manage to find an intact male fruiting body but only this uprooted one (see photo below). You can see some of the white stuff remains...


After monitoring, the volunteers were out and about searching for animals! We were fortunate to be graced by large birds on the trip. We spotted the white-bellied sea eagles and several grey herons.


Some of my own sightings included the 'not-so' upside down jellyfish...


Juvenile swimming crabs...


Starry flatworm swimming amongst the grass...


A fat and juicy Jorunna funebris... Kok Sheng found a pretty slug - Hypselodoris maritima! Stay tune for his finds on his blog.


As always, we are looking out for fish traps and here's one that has been abandoned for a while. Such traps are a hazard to reef animals as they may get trapped or injuries from these abandoned traps.


Also on the trip, Siti and her student were conducting some 'walking' experiments. This is an interesting photo showing Wei Ling and Nor Aishah directing the volunteers while Siti supervises from afar. :)


Great trip and I'm glad everyone had fun! :)

Back to blogging! = Giant clam spawning on TMSI, SJI

Hello everyone! It's been a long hiatus for me. I skipped 3 rounds of low tides with my friends in preparation for my experiments and giant clam spawning. Yep! You heard it right, we conducted an induced spawning of the giant clams!

Here shows a photo of the 12-day old larvae sticking its foot out. :) Yes, this baby's birthday was last January.


So some of you may be curious, what exactly is the life cycle of the giant clam? This chart aptly describes the larval stages. Yes! Giant clams produces eggs and sperm separately, and during induction, these gametes are collected separately before fertilization. You can click on the image to go a website that introduces all about giant clams!

(Photo credits to AquaSearch - Clam Culture)

The life cycle of the larval stages last up to 25 days before you can see distinct shell valves and some resemblance to the adult giant clams. For more information on the larval stages, I would recommend this reading on Nature in Singapore ;)

Spawning induction and larval development in fluted giant clams, Tridacna squamosa. Nature in Singapore.

Here's some photos of the process and my stay on the facility during the spawning. Papa and Mama clams from Raffles Lighthouse! My colleague says that these clams are really big for T. squamosa! That's great to know as it means that they are of ripe age for reproducing babies. :)


Another batch of T. squamosa broodstock that arrived shortly after the first spawning. We are so happy to have acquired them as they have beautiful blue-green mantle coloration! (Better photos next time!)


On the day itself, there was a lot of frenzy (and me squealing!). Some of the Mega Marine Survey volunteers that were present that day were in luck of observing the whole process of collection. I must add that the squirting of gametes was likely the 'most exciting' part.

Here shows two of my colleagues taking a short break after the collection. Look at the number of toyogo containers! An intensive laborious work indeed...


Ah hah! A table to cater for the 'sperm donors'... Each of those canisters with purple lids contained dense numbers of sperm from one Papa clam! :) Upon collection of eggs, these eggs are fertilized by mixing several Papa donors to ensure a good mix of genes...


As for me, it was a frenzy too! I conducted an experiment to measure gamete longevity... It's been a long time since I had conducted such experiments! Look at my design and green sticker labels...


After which, data was collected and counted (omg!)... Here's a photo taken by my colleague of me working on Sunday morning of the spawning week. Hardworking! haha... Check out the number of vials that I had to count...


I really like staying on the island... Besides my spawning work, it's a great place for birding! The resident white peacock perched around the facility... This bird has been here even before I started my project (that's 5 years ago)! So this bird is at least 15 years of age! O.o


An icon for successful rehabilitation in Singapore, the Oriental Pied Hornbills are a common sight on the island during our stay. They come by every morning to give me a wake up call, and come by every evening to bid me goodnight. hahah...


As part of the larger project, these baby clams will eventually reside on our local reefs. Ria shared a little about the giant clam project that was shared by NParks. Hopefully in the near future, more clams will be seen on our shores.

Jurong Bird Park presents... All about birds!

I started a little birding on my own after I started teaching LSM2251: Ecology and the Environment. It became intriguing for me as I like to observe their behaviour and wonder what are they doing. Birds, being so colourful and outstanding, it is difficult to not notice them at all...

Last 4 December, I brought along Alex (enrichment programme for him) to Jurong Bird Park (JBP) where they were holding a small session for birding enthusiasts and members of the public to join on for their talks.

The staff at JBP placed some of the stuffed birds on the table... Sweet! :) Here shows a Buffy Owl and the juvenile.

Outside the lounge, the Flamingos were parading around the ponds...

Interestingly, the Flamingos were 'in flight'... One individual began to attempt flying, then a few others followed. I think it's an escape behaviour where when one decides to fly off for a reason (not known to us), others start to follow or mimick. This helps increase the chances of survival in a group... I remember that some students attempted to study this 'security in groups' for birds at Sungei Buloh and Pulau Ubin. Sweet eh!

Some slides from the presentation that are interesting... The first three slides are about what JBP does to birds that were given to them or picked up by them... The procedures are similar: nurture and rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation is an important step for these wild birds as any human interactions and manhandling may result in learning to rely on us. Therefore, JBP simulates scenarios that allow these birds to emulate what they may find in the real environments. This component is especially more crucial for the young birds.

A rare visitor - the Himalayan Griffon Vulture! It was apparently highly dehydrated and once it was given sufficient liquids, the bird recovered and released back to continue its journey. :)

The next presentations were from NUS-DBS alumni, Yong Dingli! I have met with him once for a different collaboration and he's one of our well-known (and young!) birder in Singapore. Dingli shared with us about birds in general, anatomy and how to identify them efficiently. The other portion of his presentation focused on the conservation aspects of birds (with reference to Singapore). Dingli shared with us how our bird diversity has fared and what are the threats they faced.

Sadly, poaching (for food or sale) is still a big problem in Singapore, and happening in sensitive areas within Singapore. Alot of these birds are the uncommon and rare forest species, and Dingli emphasized the great need for more research and studies on bird ecology in Singapore.

He also shared a topic (that I could relate to well enough) on alien bird species. For my mini assignment, I decided to take up the topic of alien parrots in Singapore. With Dingli's help, I am currently refining my manuscript and hopefully publish in the next NiS issue (2012).


All in all, it was a fruitful session! The best thing - we got to visit the bird park after the talks too! It has changed so much since I last visited and I'll definitely visit it again. Cheerios!

Videos: Fishes on our shores

Last series - fishes... The more developed form of the marine realm, being the vertebrates. Here, I'm showcasing the juvenile fishes as they tend to be more interesting and cute!

Feathery filefish - an amazingly pretty fish. Filefish is known to stay very still with the substrate of their choice. Like this feathery filefish, their choice of camouflage includes flotsam or bunch of filamentous algae. My last trip to Cyrene, I spotted two adult feathery and boy are they BIG! And read about my observations of their camouflage methods - active camouflage I might add...



Blenny? - Until now, I still have not figured out this fish. I had assumed that it may be the bicolor blenny? No idea... I have better photos on my blog post. It has very interesting propping structures beneath its head.



Seamoth (juvenile) - FINALLY! My first seamoth sighting in Singapore and I found two of them on this trip! Unlike the streamline fishes, the seamoth is laterally flattened and its pectoral fins are modified to become a fan-shaped. So far, I haven't seen it swim actively before and it is described that they 'walk' on the sand. It's quite slow! haha... In this video, the fish barely moved. :P



Three-spot dascyllus (Dascyllus trimaculatus) - I had first encounter this name when I was studying in Bali on a genetics course. This fish was one of the study organism collected in Indonesia for genetic phylogeographic study. When I finally had the idea that what I was seeing was THE dascyllus fish, I was wowed! Our shores do not fail to surprise me and keep me wanting more... It's such a shy fish (and very black), it's so hard to photograph so I decided a video does more justice to its cuteness. :)



This marks my first series of organism videos! I shall be taking more videos and share more behavioural antics from our marine critters! :)

Videos: Slugs on our shores

Slug series is up! You may be wondering, isn't slugs generally slow and slimy? Well, not all slugs are like that!

Strawberry slug (Costasiella sp.) - This superbly tiny slug is usually very well-camouflaged against its home, the solitary fan seaweed (Avrainvillea sp.). This little one here must be rather adventurous to wander off its seaweed home. On the sandy background, you can see how fast it moves (over sand grains and barriers)!



Black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginatus) - This is one of the largest nudibranch found in Singapore. Its pale yellow body usually blends in well with the sandy bottom and coral rubbles. Note how its external gills 'wave' in the water!



Starry bornella (Bornella sp.) - Besides the usual manner of gliding motion, the starry bornella does twists! It wiggles its body left-right-left-right allowing it to propel itself in the water column to swim to another area. Just recently, I encountered another bornella species doing its twist! (Note that the clicking sounds were cameras flashing!)



So you see... Slugs are not only colourful and nice to look at, they exhibit interesting locomotive behaviour. A very short post for today... Next and final series: fish!

Videos: Echinoderms on our shores

Here shows a good variety of echinoderms. Within this Phylum, we usually associate the sea cucumbers, seastars, urchins and featherstars... Like most marine invertebrates, locomotion is generally very slow, particularly in the echinoderms.

Featherstars - this organism is more commonly found along the reef crest and slopes. This one here was found on a sandy shore, perhaps washed up during low tide. Most echinoderms possess a pentaradial symmetry which also means that each symmetric portion of the body can move independently. Look at how the individual arms are waving and transporting the featherstar across locations - each one giving an undulating movement and pushing the featherstar along the water.



Lovenia heart urchin - this individual here is my very first sighting of a heart urchin in Singapore! I can still remember how I met this little fella - I was photographing a nudibranch and all of a sudden, the sand beside the nudibranch moved and out came the urchin! What a pleasant surprise for me. Earlier during the semester, students in my class were prompted with this question - with so many spines, how does the urchin 'walk' without breaking its spines? Getting them to realise that 1) not all the spines are of uniform length and 2) not of uniform thickness (aka strength). Thus, we would expect the thicker and stronger spines support the body weight while the remaining spines act as enlarging body and protection. Looking at how this urchin moves, it reminds you of the 'rowing' motion. haha...



Astropecten seastar - sometimes as you walk along the sand bar, the first sign of a seastar would be the imprint of a star on the sand. That leads you to your seastar found buried 4-5cm below the substrate. Check out how this seastar goes back into its comfort zone by 'sinking' into the substrate.



Enjoy the videos! Next series: Slugs.