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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.
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.