Research Video

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Instruments deployed, heading home

Preliminary results from the benthic surveys

Nudibranch

Yesterday we made our final two acoustic recorder deployments and carried out the last visual surveys. Over the last two weeks we successfully deployed instruments at 7 reefs and carried out visual surveys on 8 (one reef was already instrumented). Initial analysis of the benthic survey results suggest that we were successful in identifying sites that varied in the amount of coral cover, from sites with no coral to sites with around 80% coral. These biological differences among sites will be key to linking the acoustic records we collect to the organisms that live in each site.

This week's deployments were possible with the help of Lee James of Ultimate Whale Watching, who lent us his boat the Aloha Kai, a robust vessel that was ideal for the diving we were doing.

Now, we wait until January when we can retrieve the recorders and find out how these reefs may vary acoustically.

The Aloha Kai in harbor, prior to our last instrument
deployments.

This work was made possible through a collaboration with Marc Lammers and Eden Zang of Oceanwide Science Institute, based here in Maui, and with funding from WHOI's Access To The Sea program.

One more mooring in the water

Crown of thorns starfish devouring a coral

Lots of three-dimensional structure at Honolua Bay, where
instruments were deployed on Saturday.

After Thursday's boat issues and some small fixes here and there, we hoped that the boat would be issue-free and run perfectly come Friday morning. Our hopes were dashed early on when, after putting the boat back in the water, it failed to start. Eventually we resigned ourselves to the fact that this boat needed a more thorough fix than something we could provide. A few hours of searching for boats ensued and ultimately we were offered two boats to borrow. So on Friday and then again on Saturday we went out on the Whale Trust's Charles B II, managing to deploy one recorder on each day. Saturday's deployment was in Honolua Bay, a popular snorkel and dive site. This site had lots of physical structure and many different fish species, although there was much dead coral overgrown with turf algae.

On Monday we are getting another boat that will help us continue to deploy instruments through the middle of this week. As a result of the generosity of several people, we may yet succeed in deploying all of the instruments that we initially planned on.

Octopus at Honolua Bay

Coral reef soundscape study: Maui, HI

EAR acoustic recorder boards
ready to program

Today marked the first field deployment of a project that has been several months in the making. I am in Maui, working with Marc Lammers and Eden Zang of Oceanwide Science Institute, which is based here in Maui. The purpose of this investigation is to comprehensively study coral reef soundscapes and link them to the biota on those reefs. To do this, we have selected several reefs from all along the west coast of Maui.

We are deploying two types of acoustic recording device: the EAR, developed by Marc, and the DMON, developed at WHOI. The last few months have involved tireless work on the DMON by Jim Partan, a WHOI engineer, and after some lessons learned from field testing in Palau last month, Jim has made the DMON as robust as possible. The first of many went in the water today and, a few months from now, we will see how they fared.

Back in business

Marc with the faulty
ignition coil

The first days of this expedition went very smoothly and involved pouring concrete moorings to affix the recorders to and preparing the instruments for deployment. Today was our first field day, and from the beginning, things felt a little different. To our immense dismay, the boat we are using did not start once in the water. After a few hours of peering into the engine compartment, with the help of a mechanic who happened to be at the boat ramp, we had identified what we thought at the time was our problem - a broken ignition coil. A quick trip to an auto parts store for the part and we were almost back in business. However, in our earlier attempts to start the engine, we had killed the battery! Back to the store for a new battery, and we finally made it out to sea.

Instruments deployed

We deployed our instruments on a patch reef and carried out visual surveys for coral cover and fish diversity right then. The recorders will be out for 4-5 months, and we hypothesize that the recordings will vary considerably among different reefs. But how different are the deployment sites in what lives there and their 3-dimensional structure? That remains to be seen.

Max Kaplan

A large turtle resting on the reef as we carry out our visual surveys