Bay of Plenty

A group of researchers from California's Loma Linda University are venturing to a little-known part of Fiji on a scientific mission of mercy. Yaqara Bay (pronounced Yung-GA-ra) is home to untold numbers of marine invertebrates – including some that are likely new to science – but in the face of proposed development, this ecosystem is about to undergo some changes. By conducting the first-ever formal survey of Yaqara Bay's marine invertebrates, the researchers are collecting scientific evidence of Yaqara Bay's importance to marine life – information that could be vitally important in designating the region as a Marine Protected Area. Check this page frequently for updates from Dr. Stephen Dunbar and colleagues on their experiences in Fiji. Choose an Update: August 23, 2005: Reflections on YBBIP 2005 August 19, 2005: Planting Seeds August 3, 2005: A Day at the Beach July 25, 2005: Trip to the Outer Reef July 15, 2005: Soaking Up That 'Fiji Feeling' July 7, 2005: Communing with Cuttlefish June 29, 2005: The 'Blue Zone' June 23, 2005: A Call to 'ARMS' June 15, 2005: Back in the Bay

By Dr. Stephen Dunbar

The YBBIP team in front of 'Cane Cutters,' with some local collaborators and volunteers. Photo: T. Faught

It has been an adventure-filled three weeks at our study site along Yaqara Bay, on the beautiful island of Viti Levu, Fiji. We have put in many hours of diving and snorkeling, harvested several of our ARMS, and taken hundreds of photographs.

Of course, we have also achieved our main goal of collecting and preserving thousands of organisms, including specimens of reef crabs, sand crabs, porcelain crabs, hermit crabs, squat lobsters, boxer shrimps, cleaner shrimps, commensal shrimps, burrowing shrimps, polychaete worms, flatworms, ribbon worms, clams, snails, sand dollars, sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea squirts, sea slugs and much, much more!

Upon reflection, I can't help but think of the logistics involved in this year's expedition: the long hours of planning, the many people from Fiji and North America who collected and processed materials, the packing and unpacking of the lab and field equipment, the scheduling of dives and vehicles, the organization of team meetings and community get-togethers—not to mention feeding all those people each day! I'm truly grateful to each volunteer in Fiji and to my team members, who continue to work so diligently on this project. It's great to work with a team of such capable scientists who are also so flexible in the field.

Taking Stock

Click here to view photos of a few specimens collected from Yaqara Bay.

Now that we're back in California and have had a chance to look over some of our specimens, we already know that we have collected several small animals that are completely new to science. Who says there's nothing new in the world to discover? Just knowing that we're discovering new animals is important in itself, but some of these little creatures may be key species in their communities, or may exhibit behaviours that have never been observed before, or may even provide important clues to avoiding or healing human diseases.

There are still so many things we don’t know about these ecosystems and the animals that survive and thrive there. Do some of these species live there and nowhere else? Are populations of these animals growing or declining? What are the links between these little animals and the large ones further up the food chain? Are these animals able to survive increases in sedimentation? Changes in temperature? We need answers to these and many more questions if we're going to learn how to protect and manage areas of beauty and diversity like Yaqara Bay.

Still, I believe that one of the most important results of our work is simply making people in Fiji – and around the world – aware of this magnificent marine environment. The Yaqara Bay Biodiversity Inventory Project (YBBIP) team is just one of countless scientific and volunteer teams around the world working to understand, preserve and protect these coral reefs and their inhabitants. All these little glowing, jumping, shimmering, glistening, crawling creatures are a treasure to me—one I definitely don't want to see us lose.

Thanks for following our adventures in Fiji this year. Join us again in 2006, when we head back to the Bay of Plenty.

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By Darolyn Striley, YBBIP Team Member

Steve Dunbar fields questions from local schoolchildren about oceans, marine invertebrates, and our research. Photo: D. Striley

After six days of lab work, we are taking a break.

Today, two local schools will tour our lab. I sometimes forget how important it is to give back to the community we are working with, so I always thoroughly enjoy days like these. It's always great to see the kids so excited; I think each of us likes to believe there might be a future marine biologist in the class.

When the kids arrive, Dr. Stephen Dunbar gives a short talk outside about the Yaqara project and oceans in general. Next, Rick Ware, CEO of Coastal Resource Management, explains what an ARMS is and how it is constructed. He then ushers the kids inside, where I have set up a laptop to show a DVD of our expedition.

I have never seen a group of kids so engrossed before! They sit quietly as I narrate the 15-minute program, and I repeatedly stress that everything they are watching is right in their own backyard. Their favorite parts seem to be the animal shots and watching the divers roll backward into the water from the dive boat.

After the show, Rick escorts the group into the next room. Large wooden doors separate our lab and sleeping quarters: we start each tour outside the first room and have the kids snake through the rooms, each of which has a different theme. I stay behind to answer questions from teachers and parents, and politely decline a local woman's offer to marry her son.

In the next room, Dot Norris, a diver and photographer, displays some of our masterpieces. A giant sea cucumber, a colorful sea star, a speckled sea jelly and a behemoth of a cancer crab are among our best specimens. Dot then walks the group of kids over to our resident teacher Terri Faught who, along with diver Steve Whitaker, explains what scuba is and how a person is able to breathe underwater.

Above: Leslie Harris enthrals local children with photos of animals from Yaqara Bay. Photo: M. Shouse Right: Dorothy "Dot" Norris facilitates a hands-on experience with invertebrates for a group of students. Photo: S. Dunbar

From there, the kids go to the last room: the lab. This is where Leslie Harris, polychaete (marine worm) collection manager from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, demonstrates a typical day in the lab. She goes from sorting under the microscope to photographing to preserving, all the while fielding questions.

The kids are then taken back outside, where they began the tour, and Dr. Dunbar asks them what they have just learned. Several hands are raised into the air when a teacher asks who would one day like to be a scientist.

A few seeds were planted today: a day’s work for us, but a potentially life-changing experience for some of the students.

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By Darolyn Striley, YBBIP Team Member

Darolyn Striley 'plants seeds' by giving some local children their first view through a microscope. Photo: M. Shouse

Today is a big day: there are four dives scheduled and two ARMS (Artificial Reef Matrix Structures) pick-ups. We have just finished processing the invertebrates we found in yesterday's dives, and we are now ready for new material. We started the day by organizing and cleaning up our lab, preparing it for the slue of new specimens.

The dive site, which we have dubbed Alpheid Beach, is about a 15-minute drive from our base at the Yaqara Pastoral Company property. Driving in Fiji is a pleasurable experience: not only is traffic rare, but you are waved to and greeted all along the road (it's the closest I will ever be to being a celebrity).

The tiny entrance to Alpheid Beach is atop a hill, and it is easily missed if you're not paying attention. After turning off the main road, you run the chance of getting stuck in one of many muddy holes, but it's absolutely breathtaking once you make it to the beachfront. The sky is usually clear, the water a sparkling blue and warm to the touch. You forget that you're there to work—until the returning dive boat appears on the horizon.

Once the boat docks, the divers unload the hand-collected specimens and the ARMS. The hand-collected specimens are nicely stored in whirl-pak bags with fresh seawater, but the ARMS is brought up in a cumbersome canvas bag.

To minimize the loss of specimens, we conduct the first stage of processing on the beach. One person is put in charge of moving the ARMS from the bag into a large basin, while another writes labels and yet another takes photos. When photos and labels are complete, everyone helps collect specimens off the ARMS. We remove the air-conditioning mat from the top of the ARMS (we use this type of mat because it is very porous) and the kitchen scrubbies from the sides (also used for their inter-woven consistency), and place them in a bag of formalin to be sorted at a later date.

After the ropes that hold together the three tiers of the ARMS are cut and placed in a whirl-pak bag of seawater, photos are taken and labels made for every tier. Specimens are also collected and placed with an appropriate label in either a whirl-pak bag or in a small plastic container (the kind that usually holds salsa at a fast food restaurant).

The remaining debris in the basin and in the canvas bag is sieved, and that material is stored in whirl-pak bags. Then we rinse and sieve the rubble basket that the ARMS sits in underwater, and every piece of coral is examined for loose critters.

Then it's back to the lab, past the mud holes and the waving Fijians, to start processing the specimens. Just another day's work in Paradise.

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By Stephen Whitaker, YBBIP Team Member

Babitu Rarawa, a Fiji Fisheries and Forests Officer, guides the dive boat through the shallow corals. Photo: S. Whitaker

As we slowly and carefully thread our way across the living reef in our small dive boat, I am busy tying a weighted line to a buoy in order to match the pre-determined depth at which we will make our next dive. This will be my first venture out of Yaqara Bay and into the wide, crystal-clear waters surrounding the protective outer reefs.

Our job during this dive is to locate one of the Artificial Reef Matrix Structures (ARMS) and bring it up to the surface so that our skipper can lift it onto the vessel. The amazing visibility in these waters should make our task fairly simple compared to some of the other stations we have visited closer to shore, where the water is murky with sediment.

When the word is given, I let go of the line and watch weighted buoy fall through 50 feet of water to the bottom. Within two minutes, I am suited up with scuba gear, which will allow me to explore this other world: one of brilliant blues and countless species of intricately decorated fish hovering over a myriad of corals forming one large barrier reef.

I glide to the bottom without so much as a kick of my fins and scan the bottom for anything that resembles a man-made object. Down here, the ARMS can be difficult to locate since fouling organisms can grow over them fairly quickly.

Aha, there it is: a small, cantaloupe-sized buoy attached to a three-foot line, which in turn is tied to a cinderblock. This is my clue to locate the ARMS that we will bring up. I descend further through the water column and come to a controlled hover next to the algae-covered buoy. Next, I deploy a buoy of my own to signal the crew above to enter the water and join me in the effort to raise the ARMS.

As the minutes pass, I write down the necessary information that must be recorded about the condition of the ARMS and the surrounding reef. One of the other divers appears beside me and together we clumsily place the incredibly heavy and obtuse ARMS into a large canvas bag. We then tie a 50-pound lift bag to the apparatus and begin to fill the bag with air from our regulators. Once the lift bag is filled, the weight of the canvas bag holding the ARMS has diminished enough to allow the two of us to safely lift it off the bottom.

We glide to the surface almost as smoothly as we left it minutes before. As we reach the boat, the Fijian skipper’s large hand is awaiting us in the vessel, and we hand over the handles of the canvas bag. With one final push, we wrestle the ARMS into the boat and take a moment to catch our breath, bobbing on the surface of the crystal-clear waters above the outer reef.

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By Teri Faught, YBBIP Team Member

A view of the 'Cane Cutters' facility, which provides the research team with a home base at the Yaqara Pastoral Company. Photo: S.G. Dunbar

I'm here in Fiji as a member of the Yaqara Bay Biodiversity Inventory Project team. As Director of Education Outreach for the project, I have two main objectives. First, I'm facilitating the Shallow Water Ecological Education Program (SWEEP), a five-day intensive session for teachers to learn about the marine environment alongside our field researchers. We hope these hands-on experiences will inspire teachers to bring practical marine and island science into the classroom.

Second, I'm meeting with teachers, principals, and the CEO of Fiji's Education Department for feedback on an activity book that Dr. Steve Dunbar and I have designed about ocean science, to be used in local primary schools.

If this were not exciting enough, I'm also staying in this humble village with ten other scientists from all over the world. They're starting an inventory of small marine organisms in Yaqara Bay – the first of its kind in Fiji's oceans – and I'll help them in any way I can. We're not staying in an air-conditioned hotel, with menus and newly washed linens every day, but in a simple Fijian domicile in a community of the most beautiful people I've ever met.

The Good Life

I love the fact that smiles in Fiji seem more abundant than sand on the beaches. Everyone is kind to one another. The people here appreciate life, they love conversation, and they know how to live happily. Family is extremely important, and everyone helps to raise the children of the community. It's a beautiful thing, and I wonder if this is what much of North America might have been like in the 1930s.

The care-free kids of Yaqara Patoral Company, with smiles more abundant than sand on the beaches. Photo: Teri Faught

Money is not plentiful in this country. Many people are so poor they can hardly afford to buy clothes or food. Still, they live very happily. They have their family and are deeply spiritual. They know life might be a little easier if they had a better paycheck – or even a regular paycheck – but they always smile and tell you that they are rich with what God has given them.

When I first arrived in the village, everyone welcomed me. The people remembered my name and never missed an opportunity to say bula ("welcome") or "have a good day." They love to tell stories, but they also love to hear us talk and tell our stories. Local children are respectful to each other and to adults: they listen to and respect the words of their elders, and they listen to and know the stories of their ancestors. These kids love visitors, and they especially love posing for the camera.

We have spent many hours getting to know one another and I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity. My time here is going by too quickly, but I still have enough time to learn a little more and soak all this in…

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By Michelle K. Shouse, YBBIP Team Member

Scuba diving and collecting invertebrate specimens: all in a morning's work for Michelle Shouse. Photo: L.M.

Greetings from Fiji! I am one of a team of 11 researchers who have come to Fiji from California as part of the Yagara Bay Biodiversity Inventory Project. Our home here is Cane Cutters, a large, cinder-block building with a corrugated metal roof that the local cane cutters use during harvest time. The building is part of the Yaqara Pastoral Company, a government-run cattle ranch that is its own village. The Fijians, with bright eyes and huge smiles, make us feel like we are a part of their village. We eat our meals as a family in the main house, thriving on freshly baked bread and mango, papaya or pineapple for breakfast; sandwiches for lunch; and curries, fish and root vegetables for dinner.

Today, I am scheduled to dive in the morning and process an Artificial Reef Matrix Structure (ARMS) in the afternoon. The ARMS is a series of three stacked cement slabs with plastic matrices similar to kitchen scrub-pads attached to the outer surface. The structure is designed to create an artificial substrate for animals to settle on and inhabit.

Our first dive is a general collection dive to look for animals among the coral, rocks, sponges and algae. We work in pairs; one recording data while the other collects animals. We make our way through the crevasses and over the coral heads for about an hour. At the end of the dive, I find myself surrounded by a school of ten cuttlefish. One approaches me, his opalescent skin flashing with rapid changes in color. It seems curious, advancing and then retreating, flashing all the while. This 'dance' continues for what seems like ten minutes – although I am sure it only lasts a minute or two – while the rest of the school hovers in place, watching and waiting. But the novelty of the moment soon wears off and the school moves on. It's time for me to move on, too, up into the boat.

At the next dive site we pick up an ARMS. First we photograph the site where the ARMS sits, then we lift the ARMS off the bottom and place it into a bag, which we then lift onto the boat. It all happens so fast, and as the ARMS is removed from the bottom the silt rises like a smoky tail and quickly spreads out around the site. I swim in for a closer look once the ARMS is out of the way and the silt has settled. All around the base of the ARMS are small rectangles of cement with handprints and signatures of the children of Yaqara who, 18 months earlier, had helped to build the ARMS.

Team members unpack a recently-recovered ARMS on the beach at Yaqara Bay. Photo: D. Striley

Processing the ARMS

Once everyone is back in the boat, we meet up with the rest of the team on the beach. After lunch, another dive team heads out while we begin to process the ARMS we retrieved in the morning. I am the main 'critter-picker' – it's my job to recover organisms from the ARMS once we get it onto the beach.

The sun is bright over our shoulders, and we work quickly. After carefully removing the plastic scrubbies and putting them in bags, we pull apart and photograph the ARMS in stages, removing individual animals as we go. The animals are placed in containers with seawater and are prepared for transport back to the lab. Surfaces are scraped and rinsed over screens to enable us to catch every last critter. After all the surfaces have been cleaned and all animals secured in containers, we pack up our equipment and head back to Cane Cutters to examine the animals in the laboratory.

Back in the lab, we work quickly to move the animals into larger containers with fresh seawater and air stones to oxygenate the water. Then the work begins. Samples are sorted: species are identified, photographed, documented and then preserved for the journey back to California. We have several tables of equipment, one of which is dedicated to a 'fancy' microscope with video and still cameras attached to it. Another table has two tripods with cameras for photographing the animals. The final table is our wet table, where the animals lay in containers, waiting to be sorted.

The lab gets busy once the divers return. Yaqara Bay is a diverse site, with many animals inhabiting a variety of substrates, and we work hard to find and document the species that live there. Some team members sort samples, others photograph the animals or enter data into laptops, and the taxonomists work to identify the collected animals. The air pumps run continuously. The lab is hot, and we rely on two stand-up fans to circulate the humid air around us. There is not a lot of time, so we work quickly and do as much as we can while we are here.

Our stay in Fiji is brief but full of adventures, laughter and camaraderie. At night, I fall asleep to the bickering of the fruit bats in the mango trees, the barking of geckos, and the chirping of crickets. In the morning, I wake to the crow of roosters, the chattering of cows and horses, the bleating of sheep, and the songs of countless birds. The sounds around us, which wake us and lull us to sleep, help to relax our tired bodies and soothe our souls.

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By Stephen G. Dunbar

Three sea slugs or nudibranchs, of the genus Chromodoris, photographed at one of the collection sites. Photo: D. Norris

This morning I could hardly wait to finish breakfast, pack my dive gear and get out to the boat. Our dive team, scheduled for collections on the outer reef, was blessed with a perfect Fiji day. The surface of Yaqara Bay was as smooth as glass, and just beyond the shallow areas, where the depth increases to 10-15m, the azure blue and shimmering green waters intertwined against the deep shadows in a spectacular dance of color and of light.

As we glided across these tropical waters toward our destination, shallow reefs added new dimensions of shape and color. Even from the surface we could see the forms of large parrotfish below, while schools of flying fish broke the surface in what seemed like a display of suspended avionics heralding our approach.

Once anchored, we briefed the dive team and split into two units: one for general collections and one for photography. Working in buddy pairs, we splashed into the warm, clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. We began by checking the ARMS nearby to ensure that they had not been overturned by storms or damaged by dynamite fisherman. We also wanted to make sure that they were becoming well colonized by algae and the cryptofauna (a range of reef-dwelling invertebates that occupy cavities or crevices) we came here to study.

We began our collection work by searching for animals on the abundant hard and soft corals, which make up a patchwork of color and habitat for both invertebrates and vertebrates. It’s not easy work, but I always enjoy the task of finding animals amongst the corals. It involves getting up close and personal with amazing coral animals, observing their polyps moving in and out of their rock-like calcium structures, watching cleaner wrasses, butterflyfish, and blue damsels darting amongst the branches—and, of course, looking for our target animals. Today was no different. I was in the 'blue zone' and loving every minute of it!

At the end of the dive day, the team emerged with a collection of several snails, more than half a dozen nudibranchs or sea slugs, a few sea stars, and a couple of hermit crabs, as well as the ARMS we later examined on the beach.

Meanwhile, the photography group was busy taking pictures of survey areas on the sea floor, which we will use to characterize the substrate near each of the ARMS we have harvested on this particular expedition. These photographs will also help us to see any changes in the habitats surrounding our ARMS over time.

The photographers also took some great shots of crabs, corals, sea cucumbers and starfish, not to mention some of the small gobies and their associated shrimp partners that share a single burrow as a home and which are so abundant in these shallow sand areas.

Settling down after another full day of diving, lab work, photography, and planning for tomorrow’s adventure, I can’t help but wonder how much of an impact this project will have on the people of Fiji. Hopefully, it will lead toward a deeper understanding and appreciation for these beautiful marine environments. I may not know for a long time – I may never know – but I do know that this work is impacting me in ways I had never imagined.

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By Stephen G. Dunbar

An Artificial Reef Matrix Structure (ARMS) after 18 months of encrusting and settling. Researchers use ARMS to identify which marine invertebrates inhabit a particular area of the reef. Photo: L. Morton

Whew! The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. It’s virtually impossible to arrange details like accommodations, boats, dive equipment and local collaborators from overseas, so we have been busy with many of these tasks since our arrival a few days ago. With all the details finally worked out, we only just began diving and collecting animals today!

It may take time for everyone to adjust to the Fiji heat and to become acquainted with exactly what it is they’re supposed to be doing, but we are all excited at the prospect of collecting specimens and possibly finding new species of marine invertebrates.

Our dive operations are under the direction of Rick Ware, and our dive group’s first task today was to locate and retrieve two of the 40 Artificial Reef Matrix Structures (ARMS) that we deployed in the bay during our last visit in August 2003. To locate the ARMS, we followed directions from a Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) unit, which guided us to the buoy’s general vicinity.

Once we had located the ARMS buoy by sight, three of our divers plunged to the ocean bottom to collect the cement-and-PVC structure and bring it to the surface. At the same time, other divers worked in the immediate area to collect as many small animals as they could find.

Even though the water temperature today was about 24 degrees Celsius, the waters of the inner bay were so murky with sediment that visibility was only about four metres. This high sediment load is typical in the Yaqara River and is largely due to the clearing of forested land near the bay to create pasture for livestock approximately 50 years ago. Still, we weren’t going to let a few pockets of low visibility stop us from discovering what kinds of critters live in this amazing marine environment!

Bringing ashore the collected animals and ARMS today was especially exciting, since we hadn’t seen these ARMS in over 16 months since their deployment. After carefully bringing them ashore and placing them in a large metal bin, the processing team, lead by Leslie Harris, went to work lifting each layer of the structure to see what was living inside. It was a bit like opening a Christmas present filled with all kinds of weird and wonderful little creatures; some have never been seen before, while others are known to science but have never been collected from this area of the world.

After bringing the specimens back to our makeshift lab, we began the work of photographing, preserving and cataloging each animal. The lab is now a flurry of activity with each team member chipping in to process the animals as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, plans are afoot for the next set of dives and collections. I wonder what we’ll discover tomorrow...

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By Stephen G. Dunbar

The warm, clear waters of Yaqara Bay. Photo: Stephen G. Dunbar

Fiji. The very name awakens the imagination with images of white sand beaches, crystal-blue waters, and coral reefs teeming with life. For me, this is not imagination-it's reality. I'm on my way back to Fiji again.

As part of the research team for the Yaqara Bay Biodiversity Inventory Project (YBBIP), I have the privilege of spending the next three weeks investigating the shallow waters of Yaqara Bay. We're looking for some of the many small invertebrates that make their homes among the cracks and crevices of the rock and reef environments.

The area we're working in is a relatively unknown and infrequently visited part of Fiji's landscape. Yaqara Bay is situated on the central north coast of Viti Levu, the largest of over 330 islands that make up this nation. Over the past 13 years, I've spent some significant time on this island, including a year teaching biology and chemistry, learning to scuba dive, facilitating summer school courses for teachers, and planning research projects. This island is almost like my second home, and the people I know here - and visit each time I return - are like family.

 Building Support for an MPA

The planning for YBBIP began back in 2001 after discussions with both Mr. Sele Tagivuni, CEO of the Yaqara Pastoral Company, and the Directors of the Yaqara Group Limited, regarding the potential for making Yaqara Bay one of a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) throughout the country.

There was no question in any of our minds about the area's importance, and we were all excited about the possibilities of an MPA, but such decisions need to be based on scientific evidence. We decided to begin collecting scientific support for an MPA by conducting an inventory of the bay area's marine biodiversity. 

After a year of coordinating with Mr. Rick Ware of Coastal Resources Management, Ms. Leslie Harris of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and Mr. Rob Lee of OurSeas.org, we conducted a preliminary expedition in August of 2003. During that trip, we planned our collection efforts and deployed Artificial Reef Matrix Structures (ARMS), which we think of as "critter hotels." These structures allow us to capture small invertebrates (the cryptofauna) that normally make their homes among the coral rubble-and which usually escape into the substrate when they are disturbed.

Now, nearly two years later, we're on our way back to collect as many small invertebrates from the bay as possible, and I'm as excited as a kid in a candy store about what we're about to discover there. The possibilities are very high that we'll be seeing some animals for the very first time ever-possibly discovering species that are brand new to science.

Wow! I'm working in the beautiful, coral-packed reefs of Fiji and making discoveries of new animals with other colleagues. As a marine biologist, I'm not sure what more I could ask for!

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