Nov 3:

Today was my first day at AIMS! I caught the commuter car at 7:18AM sharp and then we drove 40 minutes to AIMS at Cape Ferguson. The first thing I had to do was get all fixed up in the system and get the ID/swipe card that will allow me into all the facilities. The campus here has multiple buildings and you need a card to get in everywhere. Which is almost funny since this place is so isolated from any and all civilization.

It’s really difficult to plan to do experiments in a place you are completely unfamiliar with. I’m trying to get everything pinned down to the exact detail what I’m going to do. The facilities here are impressive though, especially the aquarium. The research vessel came around 4pm to drop off some of the corals we’ll use for spawning. The corals produce their eggs much earlier than they spawn, so when the team was in the field they had to check underwater if the corals were gravid (had eggs) or not. You can tell by breaking off a nubbin/finger and looking for the eggs inside which are pinkish. Apparently they had to check ~100 corals to find the 18 that they eventually collected and brought back. The corals are in the tanks now and look completely beautiful. They are in these ‘sea simulator’ tanks, which are designed to mimic the natural environment, at least one that is super good for corals to live in. One of reasons corals are difficult to keep in tanks is because algae are superior competitors. Algae can grow a lot faster than corals and tank over space quicker in tanks. Another reason too much algae is a bad thing is that it can muck up the water which can prevent light from reaching the corals (remember, they have a specific type of algae that lives inside them that needs light to photosynthesize food for the corals). Therefore, there are plenty of organisms in the tank that eat algae (herbivores, or primary consumers, remember??) that make the environment happy for corals including these awesome blue starfish, some sea urchins and some algae eating coral reef fishes. The corals looked really happy in there with their tentacles out.

Linckia sea star, brain coral, and crustose coralline algae 

A diversity of coral species

Dory!! (Paracanthurus is the specific fish genus)

Another floppy Linckia

Algae eating fish (herbivores that keep the algae from overgrowing) or primary consumers!

The corals I study! Acropora millepora. See their different colors? 

More A. millepora colonies. These are the ones we are waiting to spawn!

I just think these Linckia are cool

The corals in the back (including the awesome blue one) are individuals of a different species, Acropora tenuis. They are really hard to tell apart from A. millepora unless you are used to seeing them. One way you can tell them apart is from the differences in the morphology of their branches, and their DNA of course. 

I'm a fan of this pale, pink A. millepora. It's alive, trust me. 

Some nobly corals I'm not familiar with

This is what the outside of those aquaria look like

Cute coral with huge polyps!

The most terrifying Australian organism of the day. Today: Brown snake. Brown snakes are the second most poisonous snake in the world. Apparently they are all over the place, they hang out during the day, are aggressive and you die if one bites you. My friend was gardening and pulling weeds for the main reason that she doesn’t want to grow a habitat for the snakes. The way that I cope with snakes is facilitating the idea that the snake won’t attach you unless you provoke it. Not a brown snake. If you come across one it’ll just attack you. Even the gardening in Australia is dangerous. And apparently they are found frequently at AIMS. So I was advised today not to walk around in the grassy areas cause there might be brown snakes. And ALSO apparently the brown snakes like to lay on the pavement at night to cool down, great. A girl recently got killed here in Townsville by a brown snake, just hanging out in her yard. Basically, I’m terrified a brown snake is going to drop from a tree onto my head and that’ll be it for me. So now, after one day, I’m watching for brown snakes everywhere. 

Beware the brown snake! (I did NOT take this pic, just found the pic on deadlylist.com)