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Because " she " spawn every fourth twenty-four hours , I knew she would engender today . I roll up out of bottom at the chime of my true Winnie the Pooh alarm clock , slew into my wetsuit , grabbed my underwater flashlight and trip up into the kitchen at theBellairs Research Institutein Barbados to make my coffee , gallant to be awake even before the rooster announce the onset of dawn .
Coral reefs are not only beautiful, they are incredibly diverse ecosystems.
I kept a secretive eye on my watch because the time of first weak change each day , and if I arrive in the water even one second late , I would miss her .
A Morning Tryst
As usual , my arrival at the beach coincided with the ebb of the late night beach party ; dawn breaks too late for the dark partiers and too early for most others — but just right for her and me . I swam out along the reef with my torch off , delight the sight of brilliant green bioluminescent plankton party and patrol of hunt calamary and squirrelfish .
Coral reefs are not only beautiful, they are incredibly diverse ecosystems.
Because I had confab this location during so many night - to - dawn transitions , I easily found her home : a subdivision of reef about the sizing of the leap - ball rope in the middle of a basketball court . But she was out of ken — probably still asleep in one of her territory ’s cave .
But a few min after my reaching , the first suggestion of dawning tramp just enough light for me to discern her shape as she emerged . Even though her abode was munificently coated with yummy turf algae , she hop-skip breakfast and quick and carefully made her mode along the Witwatersrand to the nursing home of her mate . When she arrived there , her mate greet her with a series of dip and other maneuvers . She then start lay her eggs on a nest he had already prepared for her .
A distich of yellowtail damselfish was spawning . Typical of Caribbean damselfish , this pair spawned at cockcrow . And like all damselfish , the brace spawned in the male ’s territory .
A green gnathiid isopod collected from a fish at Lizard Island Great Barrier Reef. “To truly understand coral reefs and how they will be impacted by environmental change,” Sikkel writes, “we must understand their parasites."
A Damsel ’s Dilemma
To spawn in the male ’s district , a female damselfish must leave her own territory . But , unlike a individual , a female damselfish can not forestall home invasions by lock the door behind her or relying on neighbors to watch her home during her absence seizure .
Rather , while a female damselfish is away , her territory is completely undefended and vulnerable to invasions by other Pisces , including neighbors , who may scout it out for takeovers and steal her food . Therefore , the longer a female is gone , the more she risks losing " the house . "
Sikkel found evidence that longfin damselfish, such as this one pictured here, are infected by blood parasites.
So it might be logical to assume that distaff damselfish would downplay their spawning time . But in Barbados , I note the contrary : Female demoiselle frequently interrupt their spawning activities to visit cleaning station near their partners ' territories .
A cleaning post is a reef location that harbors clean organisms such as gobies and prawn , which remove other organisms from the bodies of fish . Fish know the locations of these stations and presumably visit them so as to scavenge their body of organisms that are get to them in some means , standardized to the way that tick or fleas irritate people .
A spawning stopover at a cleanup post lengthens a demoiselle ’s absence from her own soil and thereby increases its vulnerability to invasion . So , how in the world do female demoiselle work out this quandary and derogate their danger of losing their territories during spawning ?
D.L. Kramer of McGill University and I finally answeredthat question , but in the process I discovered new questions that , taunting me , also beg for answers .
For example , in accession to indicating that distaff demoiselle visit cleaning stations on dawn when they engender , my reflexion of damselfish in Barbados also bespeak they chit-chat cleansing stations ( near their own territories ) during non - spawning good morning . I enquire , what compels distaff damselfish to spend so much metre during the sunup at cleansing stations ?
To serve that interrogation , I had to identify what organisms are removed from the damselfish at cleaning place . My efforts to do so lead me to some generous colleagues — including George Benz , Alexandra Grutter , Isabelle Côtéand Nico Smit — who introduce me to the tremendous human race of gnathiid isopod .
sponger : Biological Champions
Gnathiid isopod areparasites . A parasite is an being that lives on or inside a server being without shoot down it and is hooked on its legion for is selection .
Despite the negative intension of the word sponge , parasites enjoy the world ’s most successful lifestyle ! In fact , parasites calculate for the majority of inhabitants of coral reefs , which are the world ’s most diverse ecosystems . To truly understand coral reefs and how they will be bear on by environmental alteration , we must infer their parasites .
Gnathiids are particularly unusual leech because they only feed as larvae , and the only thing that gnathiid larvae eat is blood . Amazingly , grownup gnathiids do n’t feed at all . But in terms of my research , the most important thing about gnathiids is that they serve as the basal food for cleaner fish .
A Three - Way Relationship
Because of the dependence of sportsmanlike fish on gnathiids , I knew that I postulate to learn more about gnathiids so as to well understand the relationship between cleaner fish and demoiselle .
I study gnathiids by commit a group of Pisces on a section of a reef in petty fish hotel ( cages ) , and assess their gnathiid burden every two time of day over a 24 - hour cycle . My results revealed that the fish carried the heaviest gnathiid loads at night and at dawn .
These results suggest that when damselfish rouse up in the morning , they probably have relatively heavy gnathiid loads . morning time aggravation from these loads probably drive the infested demoiselle to cleaning place , where cleaner fish — eager to banquet on their best-loved food — dilute their gnathiid dozens . So to a demoiselle , a morning visit to a cleaning Pisces probably feels much like a morning shower .
Innocent Parasite or Disease Carrier ?
These results indicate that gnathiids exert a significant influence on the daily natural process of Rand Pisces the Fishes and are therefore major actor in reef ecology .
But gnathiids are also potentially crucial for other grounds . For illustration , their land - based counterparts are ticks and mosquitoes , which beam micro-organism that cause Lyme disease and malaria . Likewise , gnathiids in Australia , South Africa and Europe seem to transmit various ancestry - borne parasites .
So after solving the secret of the damselfish ’s morning cleanings , and still fascinated by gnathiid , I displace on to a novel question : Do the gnathiids of the Caribbean channelise diseases ? As you may conceive of , hundreds of researchers are currently studying the biological science of ticks and mosquitoes , but only a smattering are studying the biological science of gnathiids . So , the answer is … WDK ( we do n’t know ) .
Even though the ocean occupy the majority of the planet , scientist cognise far less about environmental ingredient that get disease infection in sea than on dry land . To increase our cognition of this important topic , the National Science Foundation has munificently supported my squad ’s campaign to understand the radio link between change inCaribbean reef environmentsand the gap of blood - borne sponger by gnathiids .
A Caribbean Treasure Hunt
When my inquiry squad and I started studying gnathiids , we bed that Caribbean gnathiids overrun many type of Pisces . But we did not bonk whether all , or even any , gnathiid - infested fish in the Caribbean are infected with blood parasites that induce disease . If our study revealed that these gnathiid - infested Pisces were free of blood parasites , it would help oneself exonerate gnathiids as disease - spreaders . But if , on the other hired man , our cogitation give away that some or all of these gnathiid - infested fish were carry blood leech , it would entail gnathiids as potential disease - spreader .
So the first step of our study was to fix whether gnathiid - infested Pisces in the Caribbean carry bloodline parasites . This part of the study was complicated by the fact that stock sponge are notoriously patchy . That is , one positioning may be teaming with rake parasites , while another location may be completely , or almost , devoid of blood sponger .
This mean that , to cover all of our bases , we had to sample Pisces from multiple locations . We were on a Caribbeantreasure hunt ! All enjoin , we garner more than 1,500 Pisces of wide-ranging species from five Caribbean islands .
Because the parasite we seek rest in … you guess it … blood , we had to put out each fish ( without stamp out it ) , draw a little blood from it and preserve compile blood on a glide . We then shipped our samples to my collaborators , Nico Smit in South Africa and Angela Davies in the U.K. — both of whom have days of experience looking for blood parasites in fish , a complicated task .
take away it to the Streets
My hardworking colleagues riddle hundreds of slides of blood from Caribbean fish without notice any blood sponge . I wondered whether we had sampled the incorrect species of fish or had try out the wrong site ?
I was about to leave for a school term ofSea and Learnin Saba — a pristine Caribbean island . As a scientist , I prize the importance of sharing science and research with non - scientists , so I lend to the Sea and Learnprogram , which regularly brings scientist to the island to deliver presentations to the community , conduct shop with local K-12 students and need non - scientists in research .
Just before my departure , I experience a secret plan - changing electronic mail from Nico . Nico ’s email said that — Hooray ! — one of our microscope slide had tested incontrovertible for rake parasites . So , who were the lucky infectees ? You infer it … damselfish . Also included in Nico ’s e-mail were photograph that I could portion out with Sea and Learn . stoke !
Science can take you on a wild roller coaster ride , with thrilling surprise and doubtfulness around almost every tour .
The Treasure Hunt carry on
From Saba , I high - tailed it to nearby St. Maarten , which has a particularly large universe of damselfish . I am presently the chairman of an first-class St. Maarten - ground environmental organization calledEnvironmental Protection in the Caribbean , which helped arrange for me to run with Tadzio Bervoets of theSt . Maarten Nature Foundationto collect blood sample from damselfish .
My research team and I are still collect and analyzing blood samples from damselfish from several Caribbean island so as to :
Our latest results give away that demoiselle from St. Maarten and Saba are infect with descent sponger . We hope that extra sampling will help oneself us determine who is spreading these sponge .
In improver , my enquiry team and I are collecting and analyze blood samples from various types of Caribbean Pisces besides damselfish . In doing so , we have discovered many raw coinage of blood parasite that have not yet been scientifically described and named . More grist for future research !
MoreLiveScience articlesaboutPaul Sikkel ’s research .
