SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER, 2018 – UWI TODAY
9
70
th
ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
RESEARCH
– ISSUE ARCHIVE AUGUST 2010
Lee Ann Beddoe
Tell us about your project.
Overall, what we’re doing is looking at a methodology
for restoring coral reefs, because they’re degrading due to
anthropogenic (man-made) and natural causes. We’re trying
to find the fastest method for reversing this deterioration,
and what we’re using is electrolytic mineral accretion using
low Direct Current (DC), to enhance the growth of the
corals.
Our experimental site was based in a man-made bay
in Tobago – Coconut Bay. We were using electricity from
a dive shop and it was converting the household electricity
(AC) to DC before charging the corals. This incorporated
physics so the Physics ElectronicsWorkshop helped us with
that configuration. And using cables, we ran the electricity
to the experimental site.
We needed a species of coral that was fast growing, but
not endangered, so we used fire coral, also called Millepora
alcicornis. We ran electricity to 40 individual pieces and
had 40 pieces which acted as the control and received no
electricity. We compared the growth changes every two
weeks for 1 year.
We then used a Scanning Electron Microscope and
X-Ray Diffractometer, through the Physics Department. So
we had photos showing the skeletal structure of the coral that
received electricity vs. the control, as well as the chemical
analysis. At the end of the experiment we crushed different
aspects of the coral to determine the composition, and we
found that it was very similar to the natural growing coral.
That’s good because Buccoo Reef is amajor tourist attraction
and everybody depends upon reefs for the goods and
services they offer, like fishing, scuba diving and tourism.
That’s good in terms of having a regional impact as well.
Why did you choose this topic?
I wanted to do a research project that wasn’t just going
to collect baseline data and sit on a shelf. I wanted to do
something applicable to protecting the environment. So Prof
Agard [John Agard, Head of The UWI Department of Life
Sciences] suggested exploring the idea of mineral accretion.
What I liked about the project was that it pulled from
different disciplines, even chemistry.
How has your personal experience been
working on this project?
When I started the project I thought “ok, I’m going to do
research that would help the environment.” I didn’t take into
consideration the social aspect, but being in Tobago I have learnt
about it. Tobagonians take a lot of pride in their environment
and conserving it – they depend on their natural resources for
tourism etc. They’re very, very cooperative when it comes to
doing research that could help preserve their resources, so I
learnt about the people who actually use these resources and
how much they depend upon them to feed their families. It
inspiredme to further my research in theMarine field, but more
so Environmental Biology.
There’s also the educational aspect because I got to teach
people about different things and why we need to do this.
Tourists especially were very interested and they were pleased
that people were doing research like this.
I was a demonstrator and teaching assistant for a Marine
Ecology course in the department and I asked students from
that class to come and help me with my project. They learnt the
technique of buoyant weighing and measuring corals, how to
handle certain coral species with care and some of themactually
learnt to scuba dive. I also advancedmy scuba diving and learnt
about coral species. I learnt new things from Physics. It was an
exchange of knowledge.
I went to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences to do
some training – a Coral Reef Ecology course for three weeks.
I got a partial scholarship and UWI provided the rest of the
funds to travel, and it was fantastic. I met other students doing
research in the marine environment and networked with other
marine scientists.
It sounds like fun.
Oh definitely! I have pictures of creatures that are on my
research. A sea horse came and he actually started living on it
(the experimental site), so it was good for the dive shop because
when they teach their beginner divers, they take them on the
experiment site and they would see the sea horse. We call him
Sea Biscuit. We also had squid, starfish, several species of reef
fish and a moray eel that would come to visit from time to time.
Michelle
Cazabon-Mannette
Tell us about your project.
I’ve been studying two species of sea turtles that we
have locally – Greens and Hawksbills. They live close to
shore, feeding on the reefs and sea grass bed habitats that we
have around Tobago. I’ve been doing my Master’s research
studying their distribution on reefs around the island, as
well as their abundance, so how many of them there are in
one location compared to another. I’ve also been collecting
some samples to study their genetics – comparing themwith
nesting populations and other foraging aggregations around
the Caribbean. I’ve also been looking at their value to the
economy through fishing, because fishermen still capture
turtles for sale for their meat, and I’ve been comparing that
with their value to scuba divers because scuba diving is a
growing industry in Tobago and turtles are a very popular
thing to see to a diver.
Why did you choose this topic?
I wanted to continue with research after doing my
undergraduate research project – I really enjoyed that. I
was hoping to find something marine oriented and maybe
I could tie in scuba diving. I also wanted something that
I thought would be important for Trinidad and Tobago,
especially conservation oriented, and I know that sea turtles
have hardly been studied locally, besides nesting beaches. A
lot of work gets done on leatherbacks on the nesting beaches
here but those are turtles that come here every three years,
nest and leave – each after only spending a couple of months
in our waters. The green and hawksbill turtles we have are
here year round, living around both islands and they’re
subject to the local fishery.
Howhas your personal experiencebeen
working on this project?
For about a year and a half I was living in Tobago and
just coming back to Trinidad for short breaks in between.
I love to scuba dive and that was a big part of my method.
In order to estimate the distribution and abundance of the
animals, I would scuba dive at locations scattered around
the island with the help of local dive shops and I was able
to log over 200 dives doing that and it’s something I love.
I loved being in the water, being able to observe turtles
as well as other animals and interact with them. I also got to
meet a lot of great people in Tobago. The local dive masters
who work at the dive shops helped me out a lot. I was also
able to help educate them about turtles and they like to learn
about it so that they can teach their customers. I was also
able to talk with a lot of visiting scuba divers. We get a lot of
divers, both from America and Europe, so I would interact
with them, interview them for my survey.
What did you like most about working
on your project?
Scuba diving and being able to handle the turtles. In
order to get the tissue samples for the genetic study, I would
have to capture them. I was also tagging them so I could
see, if I recaptured them, if they had changed location. That
gave the divers who were on the boat chance to interact and
learn more about the turtles as well. I tagged over 50 turtles
– mostly medium-sized to small ones, but a few adult-sized
ones that were quite big and required help to get on the boat.
I’m glad I was able to be involved in this – it’s the first
time that we’ve done any studies of these turtles. I think it’s
very important work that needed to be done because turtles
are a shared resource really. They don’t live here all the
time. They move hundreds, thousands of kilometres across
the Caribbean Basin. So having an open fishery here for
example, we’re not just affecting our stocks of turtles. We’re
depleting stocks of turtles from other locations where they
might be trying to protect them. It makes no sense for each
country to be managing the turtles differently. We need to
have a regional management programme, otherwise the
work at one location is not going to do much. We have to
protect them everywhere that they’re found.
Lee Ann Beddoe
