16 March 2022

March 2022 Field Day Sampling - Forereef Pocillopora

Danielle and Alex dove at ~12 meters on the forereef of Mo’orea to a site outside of ‘Ōpūnohu Bay (17°29’07.1”S 149°51’30.3”W) with our CRIOBE collaborators for our monthly sampling of Pocillopora outside the backreef. Following the Field Sampling Protocol, we collected ten ~4-5 inch fragments of Pocillopora that had been previously tagged for the first timepoint of this sampling on February 12th 2022 by Alex. The samples were collected and brought back to Gump Station for same day processing. For all sampling locations, a close up photo with the tag was taken. Additionally, a bleaching score photo was taken at each sampling location. If a tag was not found, we sampled from the same colony that the tag should have been located on.

Same Day Processing

After collecting the samples, Danielle and Lauren followed the Same Day Sample Processing Protocol to prepare samples for histological analysis, molecular and physiological downstream processing.

Bleaching Score Photos

All bleaching score photos were downloaded off of Danielles personal GoPro camera and uploaded to Pocillopora_Sampling_Colony_Photos for the March forereef 2022 timepoint (TP2).

Data

All timepoint and tracking data sheets for the March 2022 timepoint for Pocillopora on the forereef were updated.

Airbrushing

Lauren started to airbrush coral fragments from the March 2022 sampling following the airbrush protocol to determine physiological status using the physiological protocols listed here.