After gathering a few more pieces of high-tech equipment at the Daiso and our favorite hardware store (The Monkey Store), Liz has successfully set up her first experiment with adult corals which will be running for the next 10 days. From now on, each evening we will check the Acropora corals in the ocean in front of Sesoko Marine station by snorkeling and in our water table for the beginning of spawning. Spawning is predicted for Sunday the 22nd of May at around 9.30 pm. However, they can be a few days early or late, thus from now on we will operate on coral watch every evening. Unfortunately, the water temperature has dropped below 25 degrees Celsius which may delay the awaited spawning. But of course there is always time for a beer after a busy day in our favorite Isakaya right next to our Super Hotel. Our evening work has freed up some time to check out Naha´s famous market where you can buy every marine creature that you can order in a restaurant. Including symbiotic giant clam (chacogai), which Liz and I enjoyed eating on Tuesday. Summary: Everything is awesome.

Day 2 and 3 were dedicated to coral colony collection from the reef for spawning in buckets later this week. It´s a four person job: Masayuki is an expert in spotting mature coral colonies by snorkeling. Liz and I use Scuba and some serious hammering and chiseling to free individual colonies from the reef and Reina is always ready to collect and transfer our corals in buckets to the boat. After a few hours, together we got some beautiful Acropora digitifera at the south tip of Sesoko island and Acropora tenius in the north. Corals were brought back to shore and are now stored in our water table at Sesoko Marine Station. After the Hatta and Guse lab, the Ueno lab has now also arrived and our cosy wet lab space is almost ready for action. And by the way, after one day of sunshine we just hit the rainy season. Oh well – it´s still pretty gorgeous out here.

Arrival day. After a a stressful week of packing and organizing all equipment for the coral spawning season 2016 in Okinawa, we finally arrived safely. Upon arrival, Liz and I found a lovely Welcome note in the Nago Super Hotel and made our first trip up to the Sesoko Marine Station to store our dive gear and lab equipment. We concluded the day in our favorite Isakaya with a cold Orion beer and some delicious sashimi, shrimp tempura and tofu. What could be better?

From the 24th of May until the 20th of June, the Guse lab including Liz, Madeline, Iliona, Natascha and myself went to Okinawa Japan to join the Masayuki Hatta lab (Ochanomizu University), the Minagawa lab and the Ueno Lab (NIBB Okazaki) at Sesoko Marine Station on Okinawa to collect coral larvae for comparative field studies in different areas coral biology. All participants shared a lab at Sesoko station to rear coral larvae and perform experiments. Coral spawning was predicted to occur bon the 3rd of June. Unexpectedly, spawning occurred already on the 31st of May. Luckily, we had arrived a early enough to witness this impressive annual event. Please check out the images below for some impressions of our trip. Our trip was generously supported by the Excellence-Initiative of Heidelberg University.

SESOKO MARINE STATION:

THE GROUP:

COLLECTION SITES:

COLLECTED CORALS IN WATERTABLES

THE NIGHT OF SPAWNING

THE DAY AFTER SPAWNING: CORAL GAMETES WERE WASHED TO SHORE

FIELD WORK FUN

From the 12-18 of May, we (Annika and Liz) travelled to the KAUST Red Sea Research Center to visit our collaborator Chris Voolstra. In addition to scientific discussion, we also had the chance to participate in coral spawning survey night dives around the full moon in May. Thanks to the enormous help of Postdoctoral Fellow Jess Bouwmeester and MSc Student Remy Gatins in the Berumen lab, we had a great time and learned a a lot about coral spawning. This knowledge will be very helpful for our own field work. Thanks so much, girls!

The impressive KAUST campus

Choosing fish in a restaurant

Sunset

Collecting worms in the mangroves

Liz setting up her dive gear

Remy & Jess on the boat before departure

The trip to our dive site

The dive site: Fasar Reef before sunset (okay, you can´t really see the reef)

The light from the dive torches close to the boat at the end of the dive

Day diving is also fun of course