Fe and Al

About three times a day, I walk into Olivia's office, or she comes into mine. She inevitably has a question about a coral. We'll sit side-by-side and look at a photo on a computer monitor. We'll pull up the website Corals of the World, leaf through two identification books, and come to a conclusion together. We'll part ways for a few hours, then be back at it again. 

Man, I love summer. Specifically, I love summer interns. Olivia came to our lab from Bridgewater State University, which is just about an hour up the road. She knew she wanted to research coral reefs, and she's specifically interested in molecular ecology. When she found out about my lab's Palau project, the choice was clear. We are delighted to have her. 

A community of corals on the propeller of a shipwreck.
Photo by Cas Grupstra.

Right now, Olivia is identifying all the corals that live on two shipwrecks, an airplane, and the coral reefs that surround them. The dataset started as a side project on a free day in Palau, but I think we will have a great analysis by the end. I want to know how the community that lives on a wreck compares to the community right next door, on the naturally-occurring coral reef. You see, ships are generally made of iron, and planes are generally made of aluminum. Settling on one of those metal surfaces has got to impact the corals - especially when you consider that iron can be beneficial to corals, while aluminum is toxic. Do different species thrive in each environment? I certainly think so, but we need the data to back it up.

Olivia is racing through the images we collected and producing an amazing dataset. In just over a month, she has identified all the corals on the two shipwrecks. Pretty soon, we should be able to start statistical analysis and making meaning out of the patterns we observed. I am very excited for her project!