Recruit hunt

Every trip to Palau, we do a "recruit hunt." It started as a back-up plan - an alternate way to study how selective mortality in young corals shapes populations and communities - but now it's become a tradition. I already have data from last year on the species composition of the established communities at each site. Now we're collecting photos of the smallest corals we can find to see how they compare. Are there some species that have high recruitment but die off before they get very old? Are there corals recruiting at sites where adults of the same species do not occur? We're hunting for baby corals, and we're searching for anyone who is out of place. 

Recruit hunts are super fun. We set a timer and put in an hour of effort at each site - that provides at least a modicum of standardization. Using the macro lens on my DSLR camera and any other good macro camera we can find, we scour the reef and take photos of the tiny baby corals. 

Here are some of my favorite baby corals we've found this trip. There's a zip tie for scale in each image.

I'm pretty sure this one is Pocillopora damicornis.

Matthew found a single polyp - this coral is probably only a few weeks old!