University Scholars Program e-Portfolio
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Summer Undergraduate International Research Program - Ceriantharian Larval Biodiversity
With Gustav Paulay, Florida Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology
Summer 2025
This project aims to document and analyze the biodiversity of ceriantharian larvae, combining genetic analysis with detailed morphological studies. The goal is to better understand these understudied organisms and their role in marine ecosystems, contributing to the broader effort of documenting global biodiversity.
I am conducting fieldwork in Guam, where I am collecting larvae and adults of Ceriantharia.
07/12-07/28
The final two weeks of my stay here were extremely dense! Most importantly, my equipment has finally arrived! It was a radically different experience not having to dive with a borrowed BCD anymore. Not to mention finally having a wetsuit, so I did not start shaking by the end of my dives anymore. Even though many considered a 5 mm an overkill for Guam, there was almost no single moment when I felt too hot in it… While on a collection trip for the lab, I wanted to reach an octopus – in the end, I did not manage to capture it – and I finally was able to witness my first shark in the wild. Although it was a rather small reef blacktip, I was really excited about it!
I also went to an Asian restaurant and figured I would try the animals I am studying. So, I tried whelk, ark clam, surf clam, flying fish roe, and sea urchin gonads for the first time! They all tasted very good and were relatively authentic, too.
The most important collection for my project also happened during this time by accident. I planned to witness spawning once again with a colleague from the lab. However, the sea was too rough for us to enter that night. Since we had to return the tanks the next day, and we did not want to waste them, we decided to go explore a southeastern beach or reef the next day. We drove along the entire coastline, trying to enter at multiple locations, but, despite no wind onshore, there were gigantic waves, and we did not want to risk it. After driving away from the last location wearing our wetsuits and our gear fully assembled, we finally settled on a bay with a riverine inlet with plenty of soft bottom as it turns out. We have found some interesting animals, and my colleague suggested that we returned at night, as it seemed like suitable habitat for both of our organisms. Initially sceptical, as my animals were expected to occur on the north facing soft bottom habitats, I agreed, since a night dive is always fun. I could not have been more wrong. I collected 14 specimens in one night, and they were a lot easier to capture than their conspecifics in the north. I also did not even have to look for them, they were incredibly abundant, and the only reason I had to stop was because we agreed to return after 90 minutes. My colleague has encountered a huge sting ray as well (2 m according to her), that I missed, unfortunately.
The next day, I had another night dive up north, where I collected another 2 specimens. The day after was my last dive in Guam, as I had to mail my equipment back and it takes a long time to dry. Friday, I wrapped it all up and sent it right back to Florida. I stabilised my collection, created my database, backed up all of my images, took scales, etc. Finally, on Sunday, we went out for dinner with my colleagues. They gifted me with a T-shirt from the local dive centre and wrote me a nice card with all kinds of kind messages. It felt really great. I was very fortunate to have spent these two months surrounded by this amazing and kind group of people. It has really made my stay considerably better. I had to drop my keys with the Administrative Assistant and she also gifted me with all kinds of merch.
Despite not having found the larvae – which might also be due to the high level of endemism around the island, in which case the larvae do not develop to a morphologically important form, and they only spend a couple days in the water column, this has been a very fruitful research trip. Altogether, I have collected 38 specimens for my research - 2/3 of the banded morphospecies and 1/3 of the clear tentacled ones. I am excited to see what the genetics and detailed morphology is going to show, once I am back in Florida. I will continue my studies in CHamoru as well, and will make sure to return to the island later on in my career!
06/27-07/11
These past two weeks have been quite eventful. With the Bioblitz concluded, the lab returned to its regular schedule with one field day per week. It happens on Wednesdays, and now the northern edge of the island was being surveyed. I was still welcome on board, so I continued to take part in these. During the first week, when we were ascending from our first dive, my dive buddy spotted a shark below us, that I completely missed, much to my chagrin, as I have not seen one in the wild yet. Our second dive was at an amazing site, where I have found an incredible number of animals on the underside of rocks. During the second week, we ventured even further, to a wall with very high flow – so found a lot of cool suspension feeders! As the current was veery strong, we took refuge in a couple cuts within the wall, so that we could conserve some energy and air. It was a rather surreal experience whenever I spotted some interesting hydrozoans or crinoids along the wall to emerge from the cut and rock climb horizontally!
Still no sign of my equipment – at the post office they said probably it has gotten on a different ship accidentally, but it ought to arrive soon. On the other hand, I had my first night dive for adult ceriantharian specimens – strictly outside the preserve, as our permit was not yet approved during the first week. It was a little bit challenging to interact with the taxon for the first time underwater. As they were a lot smaller and had a lot more brittle tubes compared to the ones we dug up in Florida before, I could not use the same technique and had to experiment around. In addition, digging underwater is very different and the sand always covers back quickly whatever you just excavated; therefore, it is very easy to loose track of the tubes. Despite that, I have managed to recover 11 specimens, one of which was a very early life stage with tentacles still developing! They all seem to belong to the same morphospecies – all the ones we saw in this area were rather small, too. Halfway through the fortnight, we have received good news: the permit was finally approved. For the second night dive, within the perimeters of the preserve, I arrived a lot more prepared: I acquired a trowel and managed to borrow an underwater camera, so as to take in situ images. I was not used to using one underwater at all, so most of my images did not turn out well, but I gradually got better later on. Here, we have also gotten a rather distinct, second morphospecies as well, perhaps a little bit more flow. These animals retracted into their tubes a lot deeper into the sediment, which was reflected in the number of them I managed to retrieve. They have a lot longer, clear white marginal tentacles that they coiled up after being removed from their tubes, and a very colourful body, as compared to the first morphospecies with shorter, banded tentacles and a drabber brown body.
I have also gotten involved with the Marine Lab’s Administrative Assistant, who took me to the bookstore, where we have discovered an excellent material for learning CHamoru. So, we started to go along based on that book. I always had many questions that turned out to be answered in the book later on, which – if I may project my personal view – is a little bit a poor organisation. I also listened plenty to KISH 102.9 FM, Guam’s first CHamoru language radio station while driving. On the way, we have also waved goodbye to a former research assistant of the lab, held her a dinner and gave her some presents.
06/13-06/26
These past two weeks have been quite rewarding. On the research front, I kept on doing my plankton tows and also started taking sediment samples to look at meiofauna as well. We have found many animals that we have never seen before, which is quite intriguing. I also reached out to experts of the groups they belonged to, but they were just as puzzled, so their actual identification has to wait until we are able to sequence them once back in Florida. During dives, I have seen organisms larger than me for the first time in real life. It has been a humbling experience, nevertheless mesmerising. During one of my plankton tows, I have also seen a sea turtle, which was incredible, especially after having taken Sea Turtle Biology last semester. Last week, it was coral spawning. This is a remarkable time on coral reefs. Most corals synchronise releasing their gametes at a certain lunar phase, shortly after dusk. In consequence, many other organisms also time their spawning to the same period. We did a night dive, and it was unspeakable. I have seen another one in Saudi Arabia before, but the wide variety of animals out there strikes me every single time. The water was filled with spawning polychaete worms, coral eggs, hydrozoan medusae – and innumerable cubozoan medusae that came to feed on them! Wherever our dive lights’ beam shone in the water column was filled with animals to the brim. It was incredible – the best part is, it is coming up even more intensely in July!
My equipment still has not arrived through the mail, so that is a little bit annoying, but there is nothing to hurry USPS with – I still have my hopes up that it will arrive soon. Unfortunately, towards the end of this week, the weather has turned rather rough, so, I am not able to get into the water as much. So as not to waste my time, I delved deep into old literature about my organisms to get better acquainted with their morphology for when I start dissecting them. This is quite interesting as most of these books were written over a hundred years ago, and there is definite disagreement between authors. Since, in the past century, not much research has been done on them, it is very hard to infer which author is closer to the truth. Also, I finally managed to get some contacts, who can help me with learning the indigenous CHamoru language of the islands!
05/31-06/12
These past two weeks have already been quite an experience in Guam. As soon as I arrived on the island I dove into work head-first. During my first three weeks here, there is a BioBlitz project going on with some scientists I know from another similar project in Saudi Arabia. I can join them on the dive boat for free, and I also offered to help with the project to the best of my ability. A typical on a BioBlitz – a type of biodiversity survey – is as follows: first scuba diving or any other way of acquiring material (snorkelling, yabby pumping, hand collection, trawls, plankton tows, etc.), then arriving back at the lab, the samples need to be processed and prepared. Every animal is assigned a unique identifier, a field ID, is photographed, a tissue sample is acquired, and a voucher is created using a taxon-specific fixation method. When I arrived, they have just done a night dive in a cave environment. Since I could not sleep anyway, I offered my help with processing the collection and we have stayed up until 4 am. Luckily, the following day was a resting day.
After that, every day I have received a plankton sample from the area the collection was happening. I slowly set up my work pipeline, taking images of the various larvae using a dissecting and a compound microscope equipped with a camera. As ceriantharian larvae have not yet showed up in the samples, I started preserving everything potentially interesting. I will sequence them back in Florida and properly identify them that way. Echinoderm larvae, plutei, are interesting as there are not a lot of known species of them around Guam, and hopefully I can tie the larvae to each species occurring here. The group has found some interesting ctenophores as well which specimens might belong to a potential new species. Therefore, I have also been preserving the ones found in the larvae so that we can connect them to the adults later genetically. As the permits are awaiting to collect in the site where most of the adult ceriantharians are found, I started to occupy myself with some additional collections behind the marine lab, since I am so fortunate that within a couple steps there is a reef flat with a particularly interesting fauna. I brought an old plankton net with me from Florida that I fixed up, so I will do some tows while swimming in that area as well – since this is the exposed side of the island it might be very different from the plankton tows’ communities up north, which has been quite meagre so far.
Adjusting to the tropical climate has been a little bit challenging. It is very easy to dry out going in from outside to the air conditioned inside. I got a little sick, blocking my Eustachian tubes as well, having had to sit out a couple days of diving. As my credit card’s limit was too low, I got a card specifically to rent my car from a very cheap place. Unfortunately, it turns out that provider blocked car rentals because of scams, so I had to look into some alternatives and choose an option where I could pay in cash. Money has been a little issue, as I have barely gotten my scholarship when I was taking off in Hungary and had to be transferring money between my cards during my layover in Korea. It was a little uncertain whether it was going to get there on time and I had to use the unsecured Wi-Fi channels, so I was a little uneasy about having to do my banking. The scholarship has also come with some hidden costs, such as the insurance and the 1 credit hour not actually being part of the compulsory $408 part of the budget – it was just enough for the UFIC fee. In addition, I have also gotten taxed for the scholarship further decreasing my funds, which I was quite unhappy about. My scuba equipment was shipped from Florida, parts of which still have not arrived yet, which is a little bit annoying, as I tend to get very cold and it would be great to have my wetsuit with me.
As all of the visiting researchers are also staying at the Marine Lab Guest House, at night we would always come together in the kitchen, make some sashimi or steak together and have a great dinner debriefing the events and findings of the day, or just socialising and chitchatting about other aspects of life. It is quite great to be around some great experts in the field of invertebrate zoology and learn from them during interactions throughout the day.
