It’s day three of Ola I ke kai (aka: MarineGEO Biodiversity Survey) and the roll call of organisms we’ve identified is increasing at a breakneck speed. The participants have split up into six groups that either target specific groups of critters, or use a specific method to inventory biodiversity. These include: the “macro” invertebrates group, algae (Team Limu), “micro” invertebrates group (meiofauna), Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (Team ARMS), fishes group, and visual survey group.

MarineGEO diver Zach enjoys the view from his new office.

I’m part of the visual survey team, and we have been conducting fish and invertebrate SCUBA surveys all around the bay. We’ve been using the Reef Life Survey protocol, which has been implemented all over the world to created an enormous database of fish and mobile invertebrates. The data we collect here will be added to the MarineGEO Hawaii database as well as that of RLS, both open-access for anyone who might be interested.

Of course the real stars are the critters. Here are some of the cool fishes I’ve seen so far:

This Whitemouth Moray gave me the evil eye.

A lizard fish chillin’ on the bottom of the reef.

Damselfish like this are very aggressive and try to fight divers.

A pufferfish scoots around the reef.

I’m looking forward to ID-ing even more of these creatures. Check back in for updates!