Long Key Sea Turtle Nesting Season

As the sea turtle nesting season begins to wind down, it is time to look back to see how this season compared to last year.

The Keys Marine Lab's Biologist Andrew Crowder and his wife, Whitney, a ranger at Long Key State Park have monitored the beaches of Long Key again this year from April 15th until the end of October. This year they even added the Keys youngest sea turtle surveyor to the team, their son Finlee who will be 6 months old in a few days.

The first nest was laid right before the end of April, which was earlier than either of the last two previous years of monitoring, and there have even been crawls as late as the middle of this month. Last year the last crawl occurred at the beginning of July.

There haven't been any tropical storms or hurricanes that have seriously affected the Keys to date, knock on wood, but the raccoons have been busy again destroying all the eggs in 3 nests out at the point in the park. There have also been challenges for the sea turtle hatchlings with disorientations due to lighting, but all in all the nesting has been successful.

Manatee family visits KML

While preparing for a morning boat trip last week, we noticed a disturbance along the seawall in the lagoon in front of the wet lab. A pod of 6 manatees had cruised in to check out our seawater intake pipes and show off their new baby. They nibbled the algae on the PVC pipes and tickled their bellies with the seawater bubbler. Baby was very curious about our marker buoy. All 5 adults had terrible prop scars on their heads and backs from past encounters with boat motors. One manatee was actually missing almost half of its tail fluke. In spite of the temptation, we did not offer them drinks from our fresh water hose as this would only encourage them to return to dock areas and marinas, putting them in danger of further run-ins with boaters. We enjoyed their visit for over a half hour and then they moved on.

How well do sharks smell?

Tricia Meredith
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Biological Sciences
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL

FAU PhD student, Tricia Meredith, recently conducted experiments at Keys Marine Lab to determine how well sharks can smell odors. There are many myths about the extreme olfactory sensitivity of these animals with very little scientific evidence to support these claims.















For this research Dr. Stephen Kajiura, Tricia, and a few volunteers long-lined for Bonnethead Sharks (Sphyma tiburo) in shallow seagrass meadows and mangrove habitats near Long Key. The sharks were quickly transported back to KML and kept in flow-through seawater tanks until used in the experiments. One female shark gave birth to 6 pups while in the holding tank over-night. All 6 pups can now be found swimming in KML's Shallows.
















To determine the olfactory sensitivity of Bonnethead Sharks, they used a technique called an electro-olfactogram (EOG). During an EOG, odors are delivered into the nose of an immobilized shark while an electrode positioned over the olfactory organ detects the shark's response to the odor.

So far, Tricia has found that while sharks are very sensitive to odors, they are no more sensitive than bony fishes - disproving many of those shark myths.

Coral Spawning Event in the Keys

Professor Mary Alice Coffroth, from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a team of scientists, will be using KML as the base of operations in anticipation of the annual Montastrea faveolata (mountainous star coral) spawning event.
Each year these reef-building boulder coral sychronize their reproductive efforts, releasing gametes 4 to 7 days after the full moon in August and September. Follow the event at the Buffalo Underseas Reef Research (BURR) coral spawning blog.

The symbiosis between corals and photosynthetic dinoflagellate symbionts provides the foundation and structure of the coral reef ecosystem. Given the importance of this symbiosis to the coral-algal holobiont and the reef ecosystem, understanding the mechanism governing the establishment and long-term maintenance of this symbiosis is essential.
The over-all purpose of this project is to identify the mechanisms and selective processes that lead to the final assemblage of algal symbionts harbored by the adult coral.

Bonnethead Shark pups at KML

A gravid bonnethead shark (Sphyma tiburo), gave birth to 6 live pups while being held for a visiting scientist in one of the large seawater tanks at the Lab .
















Actively swimming at birth and measuring 8-10" from nose to tail, these miniature replicas of their mother have been transferred to our Shallows where they are chasing small fry and slurping squid tentacles.