Measuring superoxide from corals in Kaneohe Bay

"Can this be my office everyday?"

Today was our first day out on Kaneohe Bay conducting superoxide measurements on bleaching and non-bleaching corals.  We packed up our gear, loaded it on the boat and headed out into the beautiful bay.  We settled on a site and Colleen and Tong got to work setting up the instrument while Laura and Amy scouted out potential corals.  Although in theory everything should work just as well as yesterday, we were all a bit jittery about all of the unknowns, including waves, a moving boat, and the occasional shark cruising by (well, at least those of us in the water had that on our mind).  Our jitters soon evaporated as the data starting rolling in and we were detecting superoxide from corals!  We had a very successful day, and measured superoxide fluxes from many corals on two separate reefs.

Amy Apprill

Measuring superoxide on shallow coral reefs.