Earthwatch: The Bahamas - Better in the Bahamas: Making Marine Reserves Work

On this Earthwatch Expedition in The Bahamas, swimming and snorkeling skills are a must. Volunteers will help create better marine reserves and protect fish populations by discovering how mangrove creeks and patch reefs depend upon each other. Tropical coral reefs are critically important ecosystems that host enormous biodiversity, support fishing communities, protect shorelines, and attract divers, snorkelers, and other tourists. But large coral reefs are only one habitat within tropical marine seascapes, which include sea grass beds, mangrove creeks, and smaller, lagoonal patch reefs. All play crucial roles, and all are under threat from climate change, overfishing, and development. On this expedition, you’ll join researchers working with the Cape Eleuthera Institute to determine how mangrove creeks and patch reefs interact to support fish populations and the overall health of the coastal ecosystem in The Bahamas. You’ll pay particularly close attention to the life cycle movements of fish from sea grass bed and mangrove creek nurseries to patch reefs. You’ll help discover whether having more and higher quality natural mangrove creeks near patch reefs boosts fish populations--especially key species like parrotfish and grouper--, and whether poor quality habitats cause stress to these fish populations that in turn affect the rest of the food chain. The data you collect will help inform marine reserve management policies. You’ll learn how to identify fish species and estimate length underwater and to spot key behaviors in both natural and aquarium settings. You’ll combine open water snorkeling tasks with maintaining fish nets at patch reef sites, walking along and taking various measures of mangrove creeks, and helping take biological samples from fish in the field and in the lab. You’ll learn how to measure water flow rates, width, and depth in the mangrove creeks, and to conduct fish surveys. You’ll help search for, tag, measure, and monitor fish along the patch reefs and mangrove creeks. The bulk of your time will be spent in or near the beautiful waters, creeks, and reefs of Eleuthera Island, so good swimming and snorkeling skills are a must. Learn more about Earthwatch Expedition: Better in the Bahamas: Making Marine Reserves Work.