A lot has changed from the days of early ocean exploration
and by fostering collaboration with different partners,
scientists increase their access to new tools
and the expertise needed for using them.
Recently Florida Fish and Wildlife scientists
participated in a collaborative research trip with the
sanctuary program in the Florida Keys run by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.
Scientists from FWC were invited to
collaborate with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary,
NOAA's research lab in Beaufort North Carolina,
and Florida Atlantic University aboard
the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster.
This cooperation enabled the use of diverse
equipment and expertise to examine what is happening in waters off the Florida Keys.
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is a 2,900 square nautical mile
protected area and in such a vast area it's essential to have
collaborative partnerships with our other agency, state, and academic research partners.
The NOAA Ship Nancy Foster is an ideal research platform to conduct
such multifaceted research missions.
Different people on the team bring with them unique abilities.
For example scientists like Jennifer Vander Pluym
and Don Field used drop cameras to verify the bottom habitat that the
ship's crew surveys using sonar.
This camera is able to go deeper than the
divers and can transmit back to the ship real-time footage.
Another tool scientists deployed on this expedition was the stereo camera.
This cage has cameras on all four sides, giving the scientists of view of what is going on
around the area. There are even low light cameras that
can be deployed through the night.
Deploying equipment like stereo cameras, for example,
you can deploy them at 200, 300 feet if you want and keep them there not only
during the day but overnight as well so you get a continuous video instead of
just the snapshot that divers tend to get.
It's exciting, a thing we found on the
stereo cameras was actually when we deployed the stereo camera at around 210 feet
on a suspected cubera snapper aggregation site. Being able to document
aggregations such as these can help the public and managers make better
decisions about these resources.
Dr. Laurent Cherubin and William Laing from
Florida Atlantic University were also aboard the Nancy Foster and piloted a
wave glider to collect oceanographic information and record fish sounds.
The wave glider has a platform that is on the surface and is transmitting this
information back to the ship via satellites in real time.
Underneath the waves, a tether attaches the glider to both the fins that help it move and the
instruments that gather data.
Fish sounds collected by the wave glider can be used
to identify aggregations of fish.
I think it's a tool that is becoming more and
more affordable to use, and creating this kind of partnership
with people who have those units can really benefit the research we do in the area.
At the same time the wave glider and stereo cameras are
collecting data, divers are able to get in the water and
place acoustic tags in fish of interest.
These acoustic tags can last for several
years and will allow the fish to be recorded on specially placed underwater receivers.
Scientists will retrieve these receivers to download the information
and see when the fish swim by.
The advantage of tagging underwater versus topside on a boat,
the main advantage is probably reducing or eliminating barotrauma.
Swim bladder expansion sometimes becomes fatal for a fish.
Fish traps placed on the bottom
catch groupers and snappers.
Divers place acoustic transmitters
inside appropriate fish and release those that are not tagged.
Fish implanted with acoustic tags
are stitched up using dissolvable stitches and once
measurements are taken, the fish is released.
It can help you learn where fish
travel to to spawn, where they spend most of their time, where they forage.
The information that we get from these monitoring and targeted research studies
is essential to providing information to help us better manage the resources of
the sanctuary.
As the tools and technologies used to study the reef
environment advance, collaboration between scientists becomes more important.
Having all these holistic approaches of combining all this technology
gives us not only an enhanced capacity
but at the same time will enhance goals for the future of how we see we can manage the resources.
Teamwork on missions like these are providing the best possible
information for future management of these resources.
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