12 June 2022

Expedition Overview

The purpose of this field expedition is to conduct research during the spawning season for the coral Montipora capitata and the larval brooding season for Pocillopora acuta in Hawaii. Jill Ashey and Ariana Huffmyer (Putnam Lab, URI) and collaborators are conducting research at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in June - July 2022. Projects include characterization of the role of microRNA in coral development see J. Ashey’s notebook here and the timing of symbiotic nutritional exchange see A. Huffmyer’s notebook here.

Programming temperature control

The apex system has been disconnecting from Fusion very frequently due to unreliable/unsteady internet connection at HIMB. However, even though the Apex is “offline” it still reliably logs data and modulates temperature, but we cannot reliably access the interface. Ariana & Jill did various Apex things to address the disconnect problem, but it may just be that HIMB wifi is not great and so the Apex is having trouble connecting to Fusion. We are able to connect with the apex during times of good connection and we have been able to program temperature profiles. We will monitor these profiles over the next day to see how they perform.

Apex treatments were turned on! See details on Apex treatment temperatures in this post.

Tank and experimental setup

Ariana, Jill and Federica moved cinder blocks and wood planks under some of the large blue tanks in order to make the squaricals level with one another. This also allowed them to store the Apex under one of the tanks in a plastic tub so that it was protected from water and sun.

Jill glued zipties to the corner of the squaricals so that the blue tubing and temperature probes were less likely to fall out of the squaricals.

Jill read out the hobo logger data from headers, tanks and squaricals, and plotted it to monitor how the ambient temperature fluctuated throughout the day. She also looked at how the temperature treatments were faring with the Apex turned on. Ariana & Jill will use this information to determine temperature treatments for the HIMB experiments.

Ariana modified tank systems to account for equipment and electrical problems. We purchased more equipment and will make final changes to the tank system tomorrow.

General lab to-doʻs

Jill cleaned and organized lab. She made a bench for respirometry and unpacked resp. equipment. We will conduct trials over the next few days using the respiration equipment.

We also captured some videos on how our temperature system works!