12 August 2022

August 2022 Field Day Sampling - Forereef Pocillopora

Danielle and Cami 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 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 the Canon camera and uploaded to Pocillopora_Sampling_Colony_Photos for the August forereef 2022 timepoint (TP8).

Data

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

Histological processing

Following the histological processing protocol Danielle checked the histological samples and saw that many had completely been decalcified within 72 hours. She removed the samples that had completely decalcified and put them back in their tubes and left the rest to decalcify longer for May, June, and July. She also started the August 2022 samples for decalcification.