Conservation

Photo Story: Hidden Treasures Amongst the Muck – Guestblog by Luke Gordon

/ Maarten De Brauwer / Leave a comment

Luke

Time to kick of December with a new guestblog, this one by none other than my good friend and science hobbit Luke Gordon! Luke is a very talented photographer whom I’ve been having ocean adventures with for many years. He is currently based in Canada, but continues his photography work there. Increasingly he uses his art as more than mere beautiful pictures, but instead uses it to tell important stories about ocean conservation issues. You really should have a look at his site, but until you do, here is an introduction to his most recent story.

Diverting the majority of my photography work towards conservation photo journalism has been an incredibly rewarding experience so far. I am very lucky to have met various people & organisations over the years which has now allowed me to get up close and personal to certain issues such as, establishing sustainable fisheries in Fiji, and now looking at salmon enhancement projects in British Columbia, (and of course Maarten, the first person worldwide to be dedicating a PhD solely to the soft sediment world & the creatures living there).

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A ‘barren habitat’ could not be further from the truth, life here as evolved in the most intricate of ways, mimicry is the name of the game on the muck slopes. Species such as this Giant Frogfish (Antennarius commersoni) have evolved near perfect mimicry of sponges as they sit in wait for unsuspecting prey.

The critters of the muck for me, and I am sure for the large majority of photographers who have experienced this world, are the perfect definition of evolution and beauty of the natural world. Everything about this underwater paradise captivates me. From the story of its discovery to the most elusive of its organisms, muck is a magical world.

Let us start at the discovery, muck was discovered by chance by Bob Halstead, a man credited for pioneering the liveaboard industry and diving in Papua New Guinea, the story goes that whilst on a liveaboard in PNG the boat had moored up in Milne Bay for the night where it was calm, Bob Halstead still wanted to go for a night dive and despite the attempted dissuasion from local dive masters they went for a dive right beneath the boat. As the dive masters had predicted the bottom was just endless sand (soft sediment) from where the name of ‘muck’ originated, however the dive masters were wrong about one thing, and that is that there was no life down there, quite the contrary, what they found were creatures that looked like extra terrestrials, creatures that even the like had never been seen before, muck diving was born.

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A tiny, recently settled juvenile Ornate Ghost Pipefish hangs above a crinoid. Even though this little critter doesn’t know it, the large ‘creature’ in the background is paving the way forward for future research into this unique habitat.

This all happened in the 1980’s, the diving community took a while to catch on, but boy has it caught on, muck diving now is a booming industry which supports thousands of people across Southeast Asia, as Maarten’s research will soon shed more light on. Divers and photographers (and now researchers of course) alike will travel half way across the world just to glimpse these weird and wonderful creatures, and these creatures are not behemoths like the African mammals, no, they are tiny critters which have evolved perfect mimicry and other adaptions to survive in a sandy desert, perfect photography subjects.

So how does a photo story fit into all of this?

Luckily enough for me (well not that lucky, I am referred to as a science hobbit by Mr. De Brauwer, yes, there is an earlier blog about this!) I was able to help Maarten with a large proportion of his fieldwork in North Sulawesi & Bali, Indonesia and on Negros, The Philippines. This gave me a fantastic opportunity to tell a story about this industry and now, the research being conducted. Currently it is quite staggering how many divers travel to muck locations around the world and it is equally staggering how little we know about the ecology, abundances and diversities of these creatures and the threats they face. This is a huge problem, as I have already mentioned thousands of people now rely on the jobs created by the industry and the money the industry brings into countries such as Indonesia and The Philippines. On top of this there is also no baseline data outlining the abundances and diversities of the creatures that have traditionally existed in these habitats, we have no way of gauging how these habitats are responding to the huge increase of direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures.

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Arjay Salac is a dive master and one of the figure heads for Atmosphere Resort & Spa’s dive centre. Arjay is from a family of fishermen who live on the adjacent plot of land to the resort, after initially being employed as a landscaper when the resort first opened Arjay took a keen interest in the dive world going on. Enthusiasm and work ethic allowed him to move into a boat crewman position. Through continued excellence in the role he was offered the opportunity of being put through the resorts PADI dive master scholarship. Needless to say Arjay excelled and six years later is now one of the most respected dive guides in the area, eagle eyes are a description which fit Arjay perfectly.

This story is a way for everybody, diver or not, to understand how and why these organisms are so special, the pressures they face and how these tiny organisms have changed the lives of so many people across coastlines in Southeast Asia, and now, what research is being conducted to answer the many, many unanswered questions we have.

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A Juvenile frogfish is measured after being caught in one of the S.M.U.R.F‘s. Frogfish, like many of the cryptobenthic organisms, are still unknown to science, this particular individual is most likely a new, undescribed species of frogfish (Antennatus sp.). Note from Maarten: this animal was returned to the ocean alive and well

This blog shows a few small extracts of the story, please visit my site for the full photographic story.

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The future generation of instructors, dive masters and dive guides.

Climate vagrants: Guestblog by Joey DiBattista

/ Maarten De Brauwer / 3 Comments

I have been writing blog posts about my research for over a year now, talking about how interesting my research is. But there is a lot of interesting marine research happening besides mine. So I will now try to get friends and colleagues to write guestblogs about their research, giving you the chance to have an even better insight in what happens in the world of marine biology.

The person to kick off this new section of the blog is Dr. Joseph DiBattista, a geneticist at Curtin University. If you have been following the Critters Research Instagram account, you might have noticed I was up in Shark Bay last week. I was there to help Joey with his research on “vagrants” in the waters of Western Australia. His blog explains more about these vagrants and what they have to do with climate change…

The age of climate change is upon us. This reality can no longer be denied given that the scientific evidence is overwhelming. One of the areas hardest hit by this human-influenced phenomena is our oceans, and the result for our precious coral reefs is often bleaching, bleaching, and more bleaching. Just ask those that study our beloved Great Barrier Reef, a UNSECO world heritage site where only 7% of its corals escaped nature’s wrath in early 2016.

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Bleached coral at the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: XL Catlin Seaview Survey

At the same time that corals were suffering in Australia, so were mangrove forests that border the Cape York Peninsula in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which experienced a die-off like scientists worldwide have never seen before (i.e. 7,000 hectares of mangroves left dead or dying…). The recent temperature fluctuations are attributed to this year’s particularly strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and have now caused bleaching at Indian Ocean coral reefs in the Maldives and at Christmas Island for example, and are imminently predicted for tropical sites further north in the Pacific Ocean (e.g. Okinawa).

It may seem like temperate ecosystems are protected from these warming effects, but no more are we feeling the heat than in the coastal waters off of South-Western Australia (WA). Near the end of the summer of 2011 we suffered through what was aptly coined a “marine heat wave”. Sea surface temperatures from Ningaloo reef to the southern tip of the continent at Cape Leeuwin, a distance of more than 1,500 km, crept up to over 5° C above the seasonal average. This affront was both broad and sustained, extending out more than 200 km from shore and lasting more than 10 weeks. The heat wave killed off more than 100 km of economically important kelp forests (often teeming with their own rich and unique fauna), that have to this day not recovered, but instead may slowly be replaced by corals, a process known in the science world as tropicalisation.

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Tropical species like this Racoon Butterflyfish (Chaetodon lunula) are increasingly found in Western Australia’s temperate waters. Source: www.redmap.org.au

This heat wave in 2011 overlays on top of an already warming trend in WA, which itself has been flagged as a global climate change hotspot. Climate change not only affects the kelps and the corals, but appears to be resulting in tropical and subtropical fish species rapidly moving towards the poles. Indeed, in addition to WA, tropicalisation has caused important changes to temperate ecosystems by introducing tropical fishes to sites in western Japan and off the coast of New South Wales, all themselves bathed in warm water currents that act as vehicles for this fresh “flow” of fish larvae.

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Joey filtering water in Shark Bay to extract eDNA

Normally the water temperatures cool over winter months and these juvenile tropical “vagrants” die off, never to reproduce themselves (…sniff, sniff, shed a tear…), but not for some species. In rare cases, enough individuals survived and have now taken up permanent residence in their new southerly (or northerly for Japan!) home. I have a keen interest in these survivors along the coast of WA, where I have started to use next generation sequencing technology to track the movement and diet of these vagrants. This technology is capable of simultaneously sequencing millions of copies of DNA from complex samples, at a not so nominal cost of course. This innovative work is only possible because of a close collaboration with the Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) laboratory at Curtin University in Western Australia. Particularly Professor Michael Bunce, who has extensive experience in isolating DNA from a variety of substrates including bulk bone, faecal material, and, more recently, samples sourced from the marine sector such as filtered water and fish stomach contents. This project remains in its infancy, but with the Department of Fisheries WA supplementing samples and the TrEnD Lab supporting my experimental work, I am confident that we will soon know exactly where these vagrants are coming from and what they are doing once they get here.

Dr. Joseph DiBattista

Early Career Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Department of Environment and Agriculture

Curtin University

E-mail: josephdibattista@gmail.com

Note: For those keen recreational fisherman or scuba divers in WA, there is a website dedicated to tropical fish species that seem “out of place” in their new temperate environment (click here for site). I encourage anyone that spots vagrant fish to take photos and register their important find on this regularly updated website.

 

 

Coral Reef Conference in Hawaii

/ Maarten De Brauwer / 7 Comments

The International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Hawaii has come to an end. While I am using the opportunity to explore more of Hawaii, I figured it could be interesting to share some of the highlights. ICRS is a huge conference held once every 4 years, with about 2500 marine biologist gathering together for 5 days of presentations, workshops, poster sessions, networking and socializing. To give you an idea of just how much research was being presented: for 5 days straight up to 10 differently themed sessions would run at the same time. Session themes were very diverse, from reef fish ecology to the role of macro algae, to protected area management, genetic connectivity, effects of pollution, etc.

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The very shiny conference centre

With literally more than a thousand interesting talks going on simultaneously, the hardest thing was choosing which ones to go see. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, there were very few talks about cryptic critters (3 to be precise), but there were plenty of other really good talks to see. So here is an overview of a few talks that stuck in my mind.

One of the plenary talks was to hand the the Darwin medal to Jack Randall, this medal is awarded once every four years in recognition of major scientific contributions throughout the career of a coral reef scientist. Most people reading this blog won’t know Jack Randall, but on his own he described more new species than any other fish taxonomist ever did. In other words, an absolute legend in the world of fish taxonomy. It was inspiring to hear him talk about his long career and to see how passionate he still is at the age of 92!

Another talk that stuck with me was a talk on cryptobenthic fishes (small fishes) living on coral reefs. Chris Goatley‘s research showed how important it can be for small fish to grow even the smallest bit. A difference of only 1mm can increase their chances of survival massively. Size however is not the only factor that helps them survive, for these small fishes, the most important thing seems to be experience. In other words, a fish of 2cm that is 2 months old has a much higher chance of surviving than a similar sized fish of 2 weeks old. Which proves that you can forget about that 3 second fish-memory myth as well.

Miss Baldisimo from the University of Philippines talked about the aquarium trade, a hot topic now that Finding Dory is out. The trade usually does not get much attention but it is still massive, and Philippines is the biggest exporter of marine aquarium fish globally. What was new to me, is that in some areas fishermen are starting to specialise in collecting frogfish! Unfortunately there is still massive overfishing and high mortality of the fish during catching and export. What makes this even more tragic, is that the fishermen are very poorly paid for their hard work, the price per fish has not increased in over 20 years! So think twice before you want to get a marine aquarium.

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Clownfish in trouble? (Picture: Greg Lecoeur)

Also connected to Finding Dory, was a presentation about clownfish in the Red Sea. Researchers have noticed a huge decline (86%) in host anemones in the  gulf of Eilat. This has lead to a similar decline in Red Sea Anemonefish (Amphiprion bicinctus) and might even lead to a local extinction if this trend continuous. The researchers could not find the cause of this decline, which is particularly worrying. Luckily the species is very common in the rest of the Red Sea, so there is no immediate threat for the species as a whole.

 

I had the pleasure of watching the talk of a blogger I had been following before the conference even started. Jobot turned out to be someone I had actually already met a few years ago during fieldwork in Lizard Island. For her very cool project she used acoustic trackers to see when reef fish died or got eaten.  One of the most surprising results she found, was that most predation (fish being eaten by bigger fish) happened during the day and not at night! Sunset and sunrise were even more intense, which has been assumed for a long time, but the fact that less fish get eaten at night was a surprise for most people attending the talk.

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Discussing fluorescence in fish

During the conference I presented a poster about the fluorescence research I have been doing the last year and a half. It seems that the poster was well received, as I got the student prize for the best poster during the conference. I am still not sure what I actually won since I was not present at the last plenary talk, so still some mystery in the aftermath of the conference.

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Chilling out at HIMB

The day after the conference I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). HIMB is a world class research station located on a small island at the northeast coast of Oahu. Besides being a place where awesome science is done, they also had hammerhead sharks in their big enclosure, and seeing hammerheads is always a treat 😉

 

In short: I had a great time at the conference, not only because of the science but also because I got to meet up with old friends and meet a lot of great new people. The next few days I am off to do some volcano exploring on the Big Island in Hawaii, before heading back to Perth for some more serious sciencing!

 

Ethical issues in Underwater Photography

/ Maarten De Brauwer / 11 Comments

During my PhD I have written and talked a lot about the value of scuba diving and particularly of muck diving. Dive tourism often provides an income to communities who have limited sustainable alternatives to make a living. Over the last years, there have been big changes in dive tourism, such as the increasing popularity of underwater photography. Muck diving in particular has a large portion of divers who use underwater cameras: I found out that on average 73% of people visiting muck dive destinations use a camera of some sort.

More people using cameras underwater can be a good thing. Photographers often spend more time and money in dive locations, meaning a higher income for local communities. Having a lot of photos taken underwater can directly help science by giving us information about species distribution (via initiatives like iSeahorse) or even by helping researchers discover new species (the story of the “Lembeh Seadragon“). Finally, more beautiful photos of ocean critters can help conservation by creating awareness with people who would otherwise never go near the ocean.

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The “Lembeh Seadragon” (Kyonemichthys rumengani) was first brought to the attention of scientists by underwater photographers.      Photo: Maarten De Brauwer

However, there are some serious issues with the use of cameras under water. Using an extra tool while diving is distracting and often leads to poor buoyancy control. Multiple studies have looked at the effects of divers who use cameras on coral reefs, and it is very clear that photographers cause more damage on coral reefs than divers without cameras. Possible solutions for this problem include buoyancy training, good dive briefings that create awareness with the divers, and attentive dive guides who can adjust diver behaviour before too much damage is done.

Another problem with underwater photography is that it is a goal-driven and therefore often competitive activity. Photographers want to see rare species, shoot interesting behaviour or get a unique shot that will impress fellow divers in off- and online communities. But the reality is that rare species are hard to find and often really shy. You have to be lucky to observe eye-catching behaviour and it takes a lot of skill to get creative shots underwater. The desire for beautiful pictures too often leads to divers trying to “force” a photo to happen, and forcing wildlife is never a good idea.

This is not just an issue with underwater photography, it happens on land as well. In 2010 a Wildlife photographer of the year lost his title when it became clear he faked his winning shot. In India, the bad behaviour of tourists trying to take pictures of tigers has led to the creation of a guidebook for ethical wildlife photography. There are worse stories out there and this article explains just how bad “getting that perfect shot” can get.

Underwater wildlife photography has its own specific problems. Unlike terrestrial photography, divers can often get within touching distance of the species they want to photograph. At that point it is often very difficult to resist the temptation not to touch or harass the animal. There are many reasons why you shouldn’t, and you’ll find most of them explained clearly here. Luckily most fish, especially the bigger species like sharks or manta rays can swim off when things get too crazy, but this doesn’t work for all ocean critters.

Animals that cannot swim away because they are too slow or rely on camouflage instead of speed, are popular with photographers because you can take your time for a picture. Frogfishes, seahorses, nudibranchs, scorpionfishes … never had to cope with humans and cameras, so they don’t have any defence against them. Some of the poor diver behaviour I have seen seems relatively harmless, like gently coaxing an animal in a better position. But it can go as far as smacking Rhinopias around to daze them so they will sit still, pulling of arms of feather stars to get pictures of the fish living inside them, or breaking off seafans with pygmy seahorses on them and bringing them up to shallow water so divers can spend more time taking pictures. In these extreme cases, diver behaviour can lead to serious harm or even the death of rare animals.

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Pictures of interesting behaviour like this yawning frogfish (Antennarius commersoni) are popular, but the yawn might actually be a sign of distress.

To a large extent it remains unknown what the effects of diver manipulation are, though it is clear to see that it at the very least stresses animals. I am currently working on a project to find out which negative diver behaviours around critters are most common and how it effects the animals. The goal is to enable the dive industry to focus on preventing the behaviours which have the highest impact.

While most divers don’t approve of this unethical behaviour, industry leaders like organisers of photo competitions or dive centres still seem reluctant to admit there are serious ethical issues in underwater photography. Maybe out of fear of giving underwater photography a bad name, or out of fear to make less profit when strict rules are applied. What we need is a change in mentality from divers and industry leaders. Well known photographers like Dr. Alex Tattersall and Josef Litt are increasingly making themselves heard to set the right example. Organisations like Greenfins work closely with dive operators to improve destructive dive practices. A lot of this unethical behaviour can and will disappear with the support of divecentres, dive magazines and role models from the underwater photography community. So if you enjoy taking pictures underwater, consider signing this petition that asks for higher ethical standards in dive magazines and photo competitions.