Cushion stars can be found throughout the Pacific, including the Main Hawaiian Islands. However, their abundances vary between islands and even between sites on each island. The last surveys conducted to document their abundance were done in the 1980s and were only done at a handful of sites. The goal of this project is to better understand the cushion star's distribution and that of their main predator, the Triton's trumpet (Charonia tritonis), and their main prey, cauliflower coral (Pocillopora meandrina).
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The methods for this project are quite fun. At different sites around the island, I use a Diver Propulsion Vehicle (check out the video →)
to search large areas of the reef for Triton's trumpets and cushion stars. At the same time, I tow a GPS on a float which marks my location every 15 seconds which allows me to calculate the length of the area I searched. Whenever I spot one of the two, I stop to take some data. After my searches, I lay out transects (which are 20 meter measuring tapes) and lay a quadrat (a big PVC square) every few meters. Within these quadrats I count the cauliflower coral. These survey techniques allow me to get abundance estimates for all three species! |
I use a Diver Propulsion Vehicle to search for cushion stars and Triton's trumpets
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