The weather is so beautiful this time of year. Not too hot but not too cool. The breeze comes in through the living room and rushes through my bedroom door and out my window. I love it! It's like the most wonderful spring day in North Carolina where everything feels so good outside, except that instead of only one or two days of that feeling I get half a year! At times like this I almost forget how unbearably hot it can be in the summer. It's strange to think that back home in NC it's in the low 30's. I'm probably going to freeze to death when I go home for a visit next week. But despite the cold and threat of freezing, I'm looking forward to being home for a while. It will be nice to see everyone and just get away from the island. I may even get to go snowboarding!
I have finally decided on a thesis project. I'm going to be working on the interaction between herbivory exclusion and nutrient enrichment on coral reefs at two depths. Basically I will be testing to see if coral/algal community structure is governed more by the fish grazing on the algae (top-down) or the nutrients available (bottom up). The issue has been hotly debated in the past with strong supporters of both extremes. Personally, I believe it's a mixture of the two factors with herbivore grazing pressure being the most important and nutrient enrichment taking a secondary role. There have been multiple experiments on the topic (with contradictory results) and none have included the deeper reefs. Hopefully I'll be able to make clear comparisons between all these factors. Of course, this is assuming that we get sufficient funding to cover the expensive costs associated with working on a deep reef (40m). If all goes well it's going to be the first experiment of its kind and I'm sure I will be able to get it published which, after all, is the ultimate goal here besides simply getting a masters. In the meantime, I have quite a lot of work to do to get ready to start this thing as soon as we get word regarding the funding. Wish me luck!
