Like last time, some video highlights below. Our 4th and final (for now) trip to Mote in about one year – we’ve accomplished a lot of field work in that time! This trip in January 2022 was focused on some further in situ sampling of sponges on Looe Key and a series of incubation experiments – for the latter, this means lots of bottles of clear water, but I swear there are microbes in there!
The weather was more cooperative than last December (brrr!) but still quite challenging, which we expected for January. We got out on the water just enough though, and rain or shine we had fun. Looe Key did not let us down with sightings of dolphins, a sea turtle, and lots of fish – all leading the the joyful screams of students seeing the reef for the first time! We had an amazing visit from a manatee at Mote too – an amazing way to end the trip.
The Fiore Lab 