In April 2022 I was exceptionally fortunate to receive funding from the JW Stephen Fellowship Fund from the School of Biological Sciences to support the first field season of my Ph.D. I used the funding along with additional grants to travel to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean in July and August 2022 to conduct my fieldwork on coral rubble beds.
My Ph.D. project is on the diversity and function of Caribbean coral rubble beds. I spent over 30 hours underwater in the beautiful blue waters of the Caribbean, surveying the coral rubble beds, videoing the fish, and collecting rubble and the critters that live within. Thirty hours might not seem like a huge amount of time, but I collected over 800 specimens, almost 100 water samples for environmental DNA analysis and more than 500 GB of photo and video data! I have spent the months since my fieldwork imaging the specimens, beginning to identify them, and preparing them to be sent out for genetic analysis. Some of the video data was used by a B.Sc. student for their honours project – it is great to have other researchers and students working with this really cool but underappreciated ecosystem.
I didn’t have to do my fieldwork alone, I travelled with my University of Aberdeen mascot, Cory. Cory had a great time – he mostly had a holiday while I worked! But I did take him on his first SCUBA/submarine dive, and we went parasailing together! It is really important on long field seasons to take a break and do something else. I am lucky in that my stress relieving hobby of choice is SCUBA diving which I was getting to do for my project anyway.
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to complete a field season in the first year of my Ph.D. I am looking forward to analysing my data and presenting the results in the coming year. Thank you JW Stephen Fellowship Fund for the support!
Other funding sources which supported this fieldwork: the Genetic Society Heredity Fieldwork Grant, the Gilchrist Educational Trust, IDEA Wild equipment grant, the International Coral Reef Society Graduate Fellowship, and Santander Mobility Award. Fieldwork equipment was donated by Finfolk Productions, Olympus, SlipIns, Star Oddi, Valeport, WeatherWriter, and WhirlPak.
