Meyer-Kaiser lab

Well, in a case of serendipitous timing, the second CATAIN paper came out just a day after the first! My PhD student, Kharis, used CATAIN data collected over a year in Woods Hole to study the settlement and post-settlement mortality of four common species. Her results actually showed some cool and surprising patterns. Settlement was highest in the afternoon for all of her species and highest on a rising tide for two out of the four. That level of detail is super informative and was only possible because we used CATAIN. In addition, mortality was lower in Kharis' study than previous studies, possibly because CATAIN was deployed deeper. Overall, the study shows what is possible with CATAIN and reveals high-resolution patterns in fouling communities. This paper constitutes the first chapter of Kharis' dissertation, and I'm incredibly proud of her for publishing it!  You can find the paper in Marine Ecology Progress Series :  https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v711/p17-29/

Settlers captured on CATAIN in September 2021. Friends, it's been a long time coming, but I am proud to announce that my paper about CATAIN has finally been published in Limnology and Oceanography: Methods ! CATAIN is the camera system I designed in collaboration with WHOI engineers to capture data on settlement and post-settlement mortality. Without CATAIN, these processes could only be studied in easily-accessible environments and were very labor-intensive to capture. Thanks to our invention, researchers can measure settlement, growth, and mortality of young juvenile organisms in remote environments. We've most recently used CATAIN in an Arctic fjord ! This paper describes the prototype - why we wanted it, how we built it, what it can do, and some potential caveats. I am so excited for our research tool to finally be made known to the world!  You can read the full paper here:  https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lom3.10550 If you have questions about CAT...

Every field trip is a journey of a thousand years. Man, if I think back to the beginning of this trip, it feels like a lifetime ago. Did I really spend Easter in Palau?  I said goodbye to Maikani in Koror, Cas in Guam, and Matthew in Honolulu. I'm glad it worked out that way, because I could not have handled all those farewells at once. I am so proud of my team, and I will miss working so closely with them every day. Each of us has our strengths. Cas excels at experimental design and is really good at executing crazy ideas that might just change the way we see the world. Matthew has an astounding level of knowledge about coral reproduction and always makes sure we aren't claiming more than the data can actually show. Maikani knows coral species inside and out and is really good at documenting natural history - the baseline observations we need for solid science. The combination of our perspectives and skills makes for really compelling research. I can honestly say that working...

This puppy hangs out at our favorite food truck. Every time I move across the world, I make a list of the top ten things I will miss about the place I've lived . While it is not proper to say that I've ever  lived in Palau , I have certainly spent a lot of time here in the last few years. As my longest trip yet wraps up, this seems as good a time as any to review the top ten things I will miss about Palau.  10. Dogs in public.  Palauan pets roam much more than in the U.S. Honestly, the line between a pet and a stray dog is pretty blurry - but all the dogs are incredibly friendly. I will miss seeing cute dogs almost everywhere I go.  9. Finding animals in random places.  There is a strong sense in Palau that humans live amongst and between the local biodiversity. I've gotten used to finding geckos indoors, birds in parking lots, and barnacles on tree branches (that one surprised me). There's always something new to find. 8. The sound of a torrential afternoon r...

Back in grad school, I told my advisor that the ocean was like a mob boss. We started having equipment failures at sea after a few successful rounds of data collection, so my theory was that we were getting too close. The ocean did not want to give up her secrets, so she messed with our equipment behind our backs. We were too good; we had to be stopped. My advisor's response was simple: the ocean was wrong .  I don't think coral reefs are like a mob boss. They don't sneak in the dark of night and tamper with your equipment when it's kilometers away from you. That's the deep-sea's MO. Coral reefs are much more blatant, open, dramatic. They fight you in the light of day, with exceptional flair. Like a professional wrestler. You know, one in colorful tights with a comedic stage name. Hear me out: waves toss you around like a balloon in the wind. Sharp rocks and shells pose dangers at every turn. One wrong move, and you get stung, scraped, or poisoned. Honestly, in ...

Porites lobata sperm -  check out that tail! Photo by Matthew-James Bennett. Friends, this trip to Palau was so long (over a month and a half) for exactly one reason: spawning. We wanted to be in Palau for both the April spawn and the May spawn to give ourselves the best possible chance of answering our questions. We got a lot of spawning in April - 16 individuals. That gave us plenty of opportunity to cross gametes , test which parents are compatible with each other, and produce larvae that we could use in experiments . But as you know, friends, I am never satisfied . The voice in my head was kind of like Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi : "MORE!"  And more we got. Oh my goodness, seriously. We got so much spawning in May - so many individuals, in fact, that I lost a bet to Maikani over it. We had 14 individuals in a single night, 11 in another (and one night with just one individual ...). We have so many observations of who spawned when and who was able to cross-fertilize whom t...

This little frog friend spent the whole night catching insects near a light at PICRC. Maikani really knows how to enjoy field work! There was a double rainbow right outside PICRC! There are the most gorgeous sunsets off the PICRC dock. Views like this announced the commencement of spawn watch each evening.  Maikani's family got a puppy! I'll admit, it was pretty awesome to come home to this cute guy after a long day at the lab.