In 2009,
after accepting a position at the National Science Foundation, I wrangled a
postdoctoral fellowship for David Baker. Baker, a grad student from Cornell
University, visited the Geophysical Lab a couple of times asking for a postdoc
so he could continue his work on isotopes in corals. Finally, I recognized that
here was a determined, smart young man who had a vision of how he wanted his
career to unfold. He managed to get a matching fellowship at the Smithsonian,
which opened up the possibility of going to Twin and Carrie Bow Cayes again. At
the same time, Derek Smith, a former student from James Scott’s lab at
Dartmouth was working on his Ph.D. on purple sulfur bacteria. We developed
close ties with each other, including afternoon trips to the Lab’s attic where a
small gym allowed us to benchpress weights and have some laughs.
Dave Baker, Belize |
Every few days, we would go off shore
or near another coral island, so they could collect samples for later
experiments and isotope measurements. Derek and I were responsible for staying
in the boat and figuring out when and where the divers would surface. One
particularly choppy day just off shore Carrie Bow, we waited anxiously for the
dive “balloon” to surface so that we knew where they were. That particular day,
Chris was to hold on to the balloon, but he forgot to attach it to his wrist. I
was concerned that our propellers would hit them as they surfaced. Derek was
concerned that as we drifted, we’d end up on the reef. We drifted about 100 m from the divers, but
learned some important boat safety and gained some confidence. Baker and
Freeman were pretty surprised when they surfaced and saw the boat quite a
distance from them.
Baker was interested in studying the
effects of nutrient additions to coral’s symbionts. His field areas included
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Panama, Florida, Mexico, and now Belize (Baker
references). Chris Freeman, a grad student at the Univ. of Alabama, studied the
microbial aspects of coral symbiosis. With their coral collections, Dave and Chris set up a series of experiments with
small 5 cm pieces of a couple of coral species that were incubated in
temperature controlled pools on Carrie Bow. Each morning and evening they
measured dissolved oxygen levels in their experimental bottles to determine
respiration and photosynthetic rates.
At night we also extracted chlorophyll
from corals and measured nutrients. At the end of a long day, outside under the
stars, we had a glass of One Barrel rum. One evening, I introduced the gang to Panty
Rippers, a favorite of Mat Wooller. Two parts coconut rum and one part fruit
juice of your choice. Shake with ice and serve. Although much more palatable to
me, the others were rather foggy the next day. Henceforth, they stuck to plain
rum.
Lionfish--invasive, poison spines, but tasty |
I was treated to the thrill of seeing
“my” mangrove trees again. I took the group to all of the major sites I’d
published on. With Derek, we waded through an interior pond with 1.5 meters of
microbial soup, a thick gelatinous mass of anaerobic microorganisms, many of
which were purple sulfur bacteria. One day we traveled to one of the other
coral islands so they could dive to deeper waters looking for corals with unusual
types of Symbiodinium. The boat was anchored near a steep dropoff going
from a shallow 2-3 meters to about 25 meters depth. Dave and Chris donned their
scuba gear, dropped off the side of the boat, checked the anchor then
descended.
Marilyn, Dave Baker, and Derek Smith |
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