Field Course Blog
Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen
23.08.-04.09.2008
Moreton Bay Research Station & Lady Elliot Island (GBR)
Course directors: Prof. Dr. Gert Woerheide, Dr. Mike Reich, Dr. Willam Loh
Supported by the DAAD & the Universitätsbund Göttingen

Donnerstag, 4. September 2008

28.08.2008 Individual Projects, second day

Day Schedule:
07:00 – 08:00 Breakfast
08:00 – 09:00 Playing soccer
09:00 – 11:30 Individual projects
11:30 – 14:00 Lunch
13:00 – 18:00 Individual projects
18:00 – 19:00 Dinner
19:00 – 21:25 Presenting individual projects
21:25 – 21:30 Instructions about housekeeping stuff and very short feedback
21:30 … Cleaning up laboratories

Weather: cloudy in the morning, a little sun in the afternoon, little wind, 20°C
Tides: 07:40 – High tide; 12:37 – Low tide

Under creamy clouds the day starts with a rich breakfast. After that some people set up the first Soccer Island Games of Northstradbroke Island. Although they fought very hard, neither the ‘Moretone Bay Mud Crabs’ nor the ‘Wet Wobbegongs’ could win the tournament.

Until 19:00 the groups worked on their personal projects and arranged their presentations. Results of individual projects were presented from 19:00.
Group one came to the conclusion that Soldier Crabs (Mictryss spp.) show no tendency in the direction of digging into the sand. Furthermore they suggest an unknown factor for the crab behaviour during low tide but absence of water.
Group two tested the hypothesis that seagrass habitats have a higher diversity than mudflat habitats. Even at the coast near the Moretone Bay Research Station.
The results of Group three suggested that the orientation of Strawberry Cockles (Fragum unedo) during their lab experiments is influenced by the direction of the exposed source of light (with a preference for blue light) and that this is more random outside of the lab in the wild. More sampling effort would be needed to make this a very nice project.
Group four discovered that the Blue Swimmer Crab (Portunus pelagicus) has a preference for seagrass habitats compared to algae (Cauleropa taxifolia) and sand habitats.

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