We now have two new and interesting documents to share with you! Community Conch wrapped up reporting on our fifth conch survey season in the Jumento Cays and Ragged Islands, and we’ve added another publication of significant fishery management value. Click here to download the docs.

The first is the final report on the survey work we completed last summer in Jumento Cays and Ragged Islands. Given that we did find considerably healthier populations of conch in these southern Bahamian islands, it makes for a more uplifting read that our previous reports. Though we are glad to see the numbers are higher in these hard to fish areas, we still offers some precautionary management recommendations.

We have also recently had a paper published in the Journal of Shellfish Research on a study conducted by Dr. Stoner and our colleague Karl Mueller. Data was collected during the Exuma Cays expedition in 2011 to study the relationship between operculum dimensions and shell lip thickness. As we all know by now (right?!), lip thickness is an indicator of the age of a conch and the sexual maturity of the animal. As it turns out, checking the operculum might also be a good indicator too. The significance of this study lies in its potential usefulness to fishery managers. A major issue with enforcement of current fishery laws is the fact that most shells are discarded at sea and therefore the shells are never seen at landing docks. So, its impossible to tell whether the conch had a flared lip, much less what the lip thickness of the shell was. If fishers were required to land cleaned conchs with the operculum in tact, fishery officers would have an alternative way to determine if the animal was indeed legally harvested. Plus, fishers would not have to weigh their boats down with heavy shells which has been noted by some as a real hazard at sea. Now, quick! Find out what an operculum is!

Allan and Justin measure shells.

A juvenile conch wave near Water Cay.

Montana brings conchs to the surface for measuring from 30+ feet.

Martha and Erin measure shells in a midden near Ragged Island.

Andy gets a good look at a conch operculum in 2011 in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

Allan and Karl work collect operculums.

Thanksgiving is not traditionally celebrated in The Bahamas, but we thought it would be a good opportunity to say thank you once again to all of the volunteers who help us out each summer. Enjoy this photo collage of volunteers that joined us in the Berry Islands, Andros, Exuma, Abaco, and down south in the Jumento Cays and Ragged Island. We could not possibly have counted and measured all of those conchs without you! Thank you!

We’ve been busy over the past few months getting reports and two manuscripts finished, the results of a very successful field season in the Exuma Cays. Our findings have already turned heads at the GCFI Conference in Puerto Morelos, Mexico in November. We’ll be attending the Abaco Science Alliance Conferencein Marsh Harbour, Abaco January 5-7 to present to the science and conservation communities of The Bahamas. We’re hoping to get a similar response…this information is so important to conch fishery management! You can download our new reports here. Check the next issue of the Bulletin of Marine Science for our new publication: Stoner AW, Davis MH, Booker CJ (2012) Negative consequences of Allee effect are compounded by fishing pressure: comparison of queen conch in fishing grounds and a marine protected area. Bull Mar Sci 88(1)

After a little more time for reflection (and a vacation), we’re posting again! One of our volunteers at Lee Stocking Island, Jamie, was particularly intrigued by the stromatolites found just offshore, so she wrote a little about her experience encountering these ancient life forms while looking for conchs. She also shares a few jokes….here’s her post.

I am writing this blog at the airport leaving the Bahamas, reflecting on my two weeks time spent on Lee Stocking Island at the Perry Institute of Marine Science. For two days I would dive counting queen conch along transects and then tow for a day on sound side of the island. My most memorable tow was through Adderly Cut. I saw an old anchor that was about five feet in length in 20 to 30 feet of water, followed by a sea turtle. To make the tow even better, I was pulled over large formations projecting from the sand, called stromatolites. I would not have known exactly what they were had it not been for a shirt Karl was wearing a day earlier. The shirt featured a picture of these geological formations with a diver entitled “Stromatolite Hunter.”

Karl's retro stromatolite hunter t-shirt from his good old days at LSI.

Stromatolites are such an amazing thing to see because they are the oldest living things on Earth, dating back to over three billion years ago. Made from blue-green algae called cyanobacteria, they produced the oxygen we breathe today. Living forms are extremely rare to find, only found in two regions of the world. On my last day in the Bahamas we went back to the location, so everyone could experience the wonder of stromatolites. Some of us dove the site, while others snorkeled and free dove. I am proud to say that I have seen the oldest living things on Earth. To some they may look like boring, old rocks, but to me they have much more meaning than that. They made homes to many species of fish, including blueheads, redtail parrotfish, bar jacks, and many more. Catherine was lucky enough to photograph a nurse shark roaming about the stromatolites and even some sub-adult queen conch.

Adric explores the stromatolites. photo by C. Booker

A nurse shark cruises through the stromatolites. photo by C. Booker

Overall it was a great experience, I just wish I could have been there on the first dive when a hammerhead shark was spotted in 70 feet of water! I would like to thank everyone at Community Conch for this opportunity and wish them the best of luck. I would like to conclude this post with some queen conch jokes we came up with on our down time (just a warning that I am no comedian):

What do you call a young queen conch that spends a lot of money at the casino?

A high roller

What do you call a grouping of conch?

A conchregation

What dance to conch love to dance?

The samba

– Jamie

Jamie finds a little time to laugh at her own jokes after a tow.

* It was a big deal when stromatolites were discovered around LSI because back then, they were only known to exist in Shark Bay Australia. Today, Dr. Pamela Reid, a scientist at the University of Miami continues to study the stromatolites of the Exumas. If you’re interested in learning more, check out her website!

The Bahamas is an archipelago stretching hundreds of miles across roughly 5 degrees of latitude creating an arc of unbelievably beautiful turquoise water. There are indeed hundreds, if not thousands of islands (counting the smallest rocks) within its 5,383 square miles. The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in the northern Exuma Cays is roughly 50 miles from the major population center of New Providence Island (Nassau) and 30 miles from the island of Eleuthera, but unless you have a boat to travel as the crow flies, you must fly from Nassau to connect with a flight to Staniel Cay, and then take a 45-minute boat ride to Warderick Wells to get there. Which is what we did. Because of the difficult logistics of getting to the Land and Sea Park, you wouldn’t expect to run into anybody you know from Eleuthera (or anywhere else), until you realize that the population of The Bahamas is considerably small (less than 400,000 people live in all of The Bahamas) and so maybe, the probability is greater than you’d think. So it was a real “small world” encounter when I ran into Chris Maxey and family one morning at the Park headquarters. They had traveled to the Land and Sea Park by boat and I was not entirely surprised to see them.

A Google Earth image labeled with approximate locations in the Exuma Cays chain, and of New Providence and Cape Eluethera.

Chris and his wife, Pam started The Island School on Cape Eleuthera over 10 years ago. They created a place where kids (primarily high school students studying abroad) can go to learn about living sustainably, gain a sense of place and self, participate in really interesting research projects, and become better leaders. The campus models sustainable systems for The Bahamas, like the production and use of alternative energy (biodiesel, wind, and solar), constructed wetlands for waste treatment, permaculture, and aquaponics. A semester at The Island School is a life changer for its students. As a way of giving back to the communities of south Eleuthera where the school is based, the Island School helps to support a middle school in one of the settlements nearby that attracts students from south Eleuthera. They also provide scholarships for Bahamian high school students to attend a semester at The Island School and complete a 6 month internship. And this is where it becomes a really small country…

Ted, David, and Jasmine reunited at the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

Jasmine and Ted, two of our volunteers in the Land and Sea Park, and Alannah, who was with us at Lee Stocking Island, are all Bahamian graduates of The Island School. I met Jasmine and Alannah while there assisting with shark research a couple of years ago, and was very impressed with their skills in the water, and passion for the marine conservation research. Ted joined Community Conch 2 years ago for our first surveys in the Berry Islands as part of his Island School internship. So, as you can imagine, it was a nice surprise to see the Maxeys at Warderick Wells and have a brief reunion. But that’s not all…

Boat fulls of Island School students at the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

A few days later, I received an email from a graduate student, Erin Cash, who is working at The Island School’s research facility, The Cape Eleuthera Institute. She explained that she is studying queen conch around Cape Eleuthera for her master’s degree and is currently leading a research course on conch for the summer term. She asked if it would be possible to come visit us at Warderick Wells, because she thought it would be a good opportunity for the kids. Well, 3 days later they arrived in 3 boats full of people ready for a quick tour of the Park. They brought David Miller, a veteran teacher at the Island School. It turns out that Ted was one of David’s very first advisees when he started there 3 years ago! So again, it was a great reunion.

Ted ascends from a dive.

Jasmine splashes in for a dive.

What do these small world connections have to do with the queen conch and conservation? Well, considering that future generations are likely to have even bigger fisheries and conservation challenges than the world is dealing with today, a little first hand experience early in these student’s education seems like it would be a very good thing.

The 20 kids who traveled from Eleuthera to the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park that day all got to experience a working marine reserve, one that is protecting perhaps the healthiest conch stocks in The Bahamas. The Community Conch crew had good discussion with them about our work, and the role we are playing in conservation of such an important fishery species. This exchange took place out of the classroom, and in a real world context, so it made a big impression on them (or so we heard!).

Jasmine, Ted, and Alannah might not have joined our team this year or in previous years if it weren’t for the hands-on experience in marine science and scientific diving they gained at The Island School. They contributed a lot to this year’s mission, and will take with them a better understanding of the state of the conch fishery and conservation of the species. Not so secretly, we hope students like Jaz, Ted, and Alannah will one day find “real jobs” in The Bahamas as scientists, resource managers, and policy makers, and join the efforts underway to keep their country’s ecosystems, and the livelihoods of the people dependent on these ecosystems, in tact.  It is a small country after all, and a few people can make a difference!

Borrowed from piscoweb.org...a great resource!

Finally, it is entirely possible that the populations of queen conch in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park that we surveyed are connected to populations around Cape Eleuthera where the Island School is located. (Check out the previous post for more about meta-populations and connectivity.) Conch larvae drift in the currents for about a month before settling in the place where they will grow up. Circulation of water within Exuma Sound (the body of water between Eleuthera and the Exuma Cays) could carry conch larvae from one island to the next, so Erin and her students could be studying conchs that are related to conchs that we were studying!

Thanks for checking in,

Catherine

The surveys and our 2011 field season are officially completed! We’ve left the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, and the volunteers have traveled back home, but there is still a lot to say. Now with better internet access, I think it would be a shame to stop the blog. As we have more time to reflect on this expedition, I know there will be more for us to share. Scientific results aside, we learned a lot on this trip, and I think it is important to continue the conversation with a broader audience.

So, for our first post-expedition post, we’re going to recognize one of our veteran volunteers, Andy Mclean, who shall now be know as the conch whisperer.

Part of our reproductive study of queen conch this year involved determining whether the animal was male or female. This is very difficult to do without sacrificing the animal, because conchs are very shy. They have that big, hard shell to protect their soft bodies, and they use it whenever they sense danger. If disturbed, a conch may retract its entire body back into the shell and stay there until it is sure that the threat has passed.

The best way to find out if a conch is a girl or a boy is to look for the presence or absence of the male’s reproductive organ, “the verge”. The verge is easy to spot if the conch is out of its shell, though it is very rare (but possible) to catch a conch extending its body far enough out of its shell.

Andy became our expert at using non-invasive, non-lethal techniques to determine the sex of a conch. He was patient. He was non-threatening. He knew just where to look when a conch decided to emerge, and make a “run” for it. (Conchs are very, very slow, so it is really more like a “crawl for it”.) As Peyton put it, “Andy’s got the urge to see the verge emerge.”

We are not sure why this talent would be useful in any other setting, but perhaps you will see Andy featured in his own T.V. show one day…

First, Andy listens to the conchs as he brings them to the surface. photo by C. Booker

A fiesty old conch emerges for Andy. photo by C. Booker

Andy waits and watches patiently. photo by C. Booker

An early attempt at the x-ray vision technique. photo by C. Booker

As a nine year old kid I ordered a set of goggles, snorkel, and fins from Montgomery Ward Catalog.  I taught myself to snorkel in the college pool as my Dad taught his Water Safety Instructor courses.  As the students swam their laps and did their tasks I dove in and among them imagining all kinds of scenarios with me being in the Bahamas; diving the warm Caribbean waters instead of the chlorinated, heated pool at Chadron State College.

In these imaginary adventures there were any number of animals; sharks, rays, morays, and octopus.  Now, years later, (and we won’t count how many…though the reference to the “Monkey Wards” Catalog should give you a hint) here I am actually in the warm waters off the sands of Warderick Wells Cay in the Bahamas.   I’m here having adventures with conch.  Yea, there are sharks, rays, morays and octopus around…be we are concentrating on the queen conch.

Mark "Peyton" heads to surface with a conch.

A friend sent me an email about the Community Conch project and said he thought I might be interested.  I looked into it, and I was.  I contacted Catherine and said I was very interested in coming to the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park and helping any way I could with the project.   She said come on down.

So I did.  I wanted to observe the methods and protocols of their conch surveys.  We do similar survey work along transects, only in terrestrial habitats.  Our work revolves around the effects of different grazing schedules on grass, invasive weeds, and breeding birds.  One of the major problems is always in insuring your sampling is unbiased and that your subsequent analysis is accurate.  Community Conch has the same concerns and coming from such a different environment to watch and learn from them helps me to evaluate our sampling and our monitoring work.

One aspect of the surveys, towing an observer behind the boat, head and mask in the water looking down and counting conch, reminds me of doing large mammal surveys from an airplane…flying above and counting only those viewed through a special frame on the plane…though in doing that you don’t have to worry about the speed of the plane pulling your swimming suit down to your ankles.  OK, that only happened once!   However, this compare and contrast activity, or “cross fertilization” as Martha calls it, is exactly what I had hoped for.

Peyton waits patiently for a conch to come out of its shell, a technique we call "waiting on the verge."

If nothing else this has been a wonderful change for me.  First, as you would expect, the Bahamas in July are about as different from Nebraska in July as you can get; secondly, I’m working in sea water instead of the open grasslands or the gravel mine lakes that I frequent at home.  Lastly, while I’ve been on any number of recreational dive trips over the years, the diving here is quite different.

Peyton checks out a Bahamian coral reef.

On a recreational dive you are schooled to slow down, relax, don’t exert yourself.  Here, the dives last about 40 minutes with 28 of those minutes consisting of active swimming.  Two divers go down.  One navigates a square while the other searches for conch.  I’ve never been able to stretch out a tank full of air in relaxed recreational diving and with these dives, because of the exertion; it is a challenge for me to simply get to the anchor again before I begin to run low on air.   However, they are working around my limitations and I’m really enjoying the dives.

Today, however, I won’t be diving, I will again don the snorkel, mask, and fins and we will go looking for conch in shallow areas.  Once we locate the conch we will free dive and try and find individuals that fit the size range we need for our study.

Mark shares another good story.

Our two-week adventure is drawing to a close and it has been great.  The weather has been very good, the diving fun, and the people I’m working around fantastic. All things come full circle and today, years after playing out my dreams in the pool, I’ll grab my  snorkel and fins and live those dreams of diving in the clear, warm waters of the Bahamas.

-Peyton

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen lots of queen conch. We’ve spent what amounts to days and days in the water and covered miles (or kilometers) of seabed in search of these animals. Each day the crew from the dive boat and the crew from the tow boat compare notes. Where did you go? How many did you see? How big? Any mating? Eggs? How old were they?

After listening to these daily reports and seeing hundreds of conch myself, I am amazed by the variety of shell sizes and shapes within the species, Strombus gigas. This variety is likely due to a combination of genetics, the kind of the habitat the conch is living in, and the age of the animal. In a previous post I briefly talked about the differences between juveniles, rollers, and adults (a little more on that soon), but for this post I am really talking about the adults.

A thin-lipped, "young adult" queen conch shell at Warderick Wells. photo by C. Booker

Measuring the flared lip of an older adult conch shell. photo by M. Peyton

Here in Warderick Wells the dive crew is finding a lot of older conchs in the deeper waters we are exploring. Most of the old conchs we find have shells that are very rounded and have long since lost the beautiful pale pink on the outside of their shells. They are extremely heavy because of the layers and layers of calcium carbonate shell the animal has built up over the years. The younger conchs the towing crew finds generally have a much more delicate appearance because their shell has not been worn down over time and the beautiful hues of pinks still stand out. So, age does obviously make a difference in the appearance of the conch.

A conch covered in algae. photo by C. Booker

All animals are shaped by their environment, and the queen conch is no different. The appearance of a conch shell is very influenced by the biological environment it lives in. Fishermen know that a conch’s shell tends to take on certain characteristics of its habitat and are not fooled by this “disguise”. Our towing team has had a great time trying to spot conchs disguised by lots of algae growing on their shell that resemble little “Chia pets”, or “rasta conchs” (depending on who you ask).  These guys blend into their habitat really well! Towards the end of a conch’s life the thick shell has almost certainly become a little ecosystem itself.  We’ve seen many different species of algae, some corals, and boring worms in the oldest shells.

Another reason for such great variety in the conchs we have seen may have to do with their genetic “flexibility”, or what scientists call phenotypic plasticity. Most immobile (or less mobile) animals can change the way their genes are expressed based on the habitat they live in. Scientists think that depending on the habitat (the physical environment and the food that is available), a conch’s shell might actually form differently in size and even in shape. After all, the better adapted they are, the more likely they are to survive!

An adult "samba" conch shell (on the left) and an adult "broad-lipped" conch shell (on the right).

We have also been finding a lot of a small variety of conch we call “sambas”. They are like miniature versions of the big broad-lipped queen conch that usually represents the species. The samba adults are still recognized by the flared lip, but it is not as big and beautiful. We do not know what exactly causes these conchs to grow smaller (type of food, availability of food, water quality, genetics?), but scientific investigations have indicated they may be genetically different than the normal sized queen conch.

In the end, we don’t mind what they look like; they all get counted as queen conch. However, from what we have heard, fishermen do care what a conch looks like. The small samba conchs are harder to get out of the shell and the meat is tougher, so they are often skipped over. The really old conchs may be passed up too for the same reason. The large conchs with the broad shell lips are tastier and you get more return ($) for your effort. Is this preference by fishermen (what scientists call selective fishing pressure) having an affect on the overall fishery? If only the sambas are left to reproduce, is that what we can expect to see more of in the future? From what we saw in the Berry Islands and Andros, this could be happening already.

Thanks for checking in…

Catherine

Well everyone, at this early stage no real conclusions can be drawn about what we’re going to find in the deeper depths here in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, but so far, we have found more queen conch on one transect than we did on all the transects we did (40) at Lee Stocking Island! We’ve also observed more mating and egg masses as well, which means more reproduction too. More conchs! More reproduction! Could the Park be living up to its reputation?

Ted carefully lifts a mating pair of queen conch off the bottom. If you look closely you can see the male's verge stretching into the female's shell. photo by C. Booker

Our new volunteers are a great bunch of people. Andy and Ted were with us in the Berry Islands in 2009, and Peyton and Jasmine have joined us for the first time. And of course, we still have Adric with us. So, we’re getting everyone trained in the field, and just starting to get into our daily work rhythm. Stayed tuned for posts from the volunteers’ perspectives on the project and the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park!

The dive crew takes a lunch break in a protected cove. photo by C. Booker

Thanks for checking in…

Catherine