In the Grass, On the Reef, A World Away

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

David and I are in Sydney, Australia, on visiting research appointments with the University of Technology Sydney. We arrived the first of the year, and after recovering from jet lag and getting our bearings, we embarked this week on setting up a couple of new experiments.  We have great local “guides” – Dr. Peter Macreadie (UTS), Dr. Paul York (UTS), Dr. Paul Gribben (UTS), and Dr. Melanie Bishop (Macquarie University) – to introduce us to the field systems and collaborate with us on these projects.

Our seagrass and razor clam experiment is set up at Point Wolstoncroft in Lake Macquarie (north of Sydney).

The importance of local knowledge was highlighted last week as we snorkeled in the seagrass beds of Lake Macquarie (a large coastal salt lake) with Pete and several members of his lab.

Pete was busy sampling an existing experiment while David and I scouted around.   Thankfully his head happened to be above water when I said to David, “Come check out this little octopus I found!”.  Lo and behold, it was a blue-ringed octopus (genus Hapalochlaena), arguably the most venomous (yet luckily very docile) marine organism in the world.

A blue ringed octopus.

I quickly stopped prodding at it with the clam shell I’d found for that purpose and decided that next time I better inquire of the particular dangers of a site before getting in the water! (And thus got the image above from borneodream.com, rather than my own camera…)

Dangers aside, the research sites we’re working in are very pretty,

A view of our site at Point Wolstoncroft.

Our second experimental site with Paul Gribben and Melanie Bishop at Point Towra Nature Reserve.

as well as interesting ecologically.  We’re going to focus on the “foundation species” in these systems – the ones that create habitat for lots of invertebrates and fishes that wouldn’t otherwise be there.  Our foundation species of interest are:

1. Seagrass (Zostera capricorni) and razor clams (aka, razor fish; Pinna bicolor) in Lake Macquarie.

The shell of a "razor fish."

Collaborator Dr. Paul York counting seagrass density. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Peter Macreadie).

2. Oysters (Saccostrea glomerata) and algae (Hormosira banksii) living around the mangrove pneumatophores in Towra Point Nature Reserve, Botany Bay.

An oyster cluster amidst the mangrove pneumatophores and algae.

The algae, Hormosira banksii.

Our field site at Point Towra Nature Reserve.

You may have noticed that some of these plants and animals are familiar to the blog (though different species) – in fact, there are analogues for all but the algae in our field sites in FL.  So we are looking forward not only to starting new experiments here, but also to beginning companion experiments when we get back to examine the similarities and differences between the different environments.

Randall and David’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation.