I guess I would be remiss if I didn't talk about why I'm here. In a word: lionfish. In a much more wordy, long winded way here is the story: For my dissertation research I have been studying the bacterial communities associated with the invasive lionfish in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The lionfish was introduced over 20 years ago into the waters along the Florida coast. The most probable route of introduction is the aquarium trade due to their high value as an ornamental fish. I began studying the bacteria associated with the fish because invasive species are known to have the ability of introducing pathogens to their new environment. While that does not appear to be true in this case, I have discovered some very interesting (to me, at least) patterns in bacterial community dynamics. So in the invaded range I have been tasked with spearing, dissecting, and analyzing the fish. It looks a little like this:
(Key Largo, Florida)
(Roatan, Honduras: look how happy I am)
(Roatan, Honduras)
I received this grant to come to Taiwan and study the lionfish in their native range. Here the task is a little more complicated. They are not invasive here; they are not hurting the environment; and they are not over populated. In short, I can't (and wouldn't) kill them. So today I went out to try and net me a lionfish to get a fin clip and take a surface swab to study fish genetics and bacterial communities. Yikes, it was tough. You get one shot, and well, I missed. Oh well, I will try again tomorrow and keep everyone updated with the progress.
The one that got away:
(I'll be back for you, mark my words)
(my sad face; note it looks like most other faces underwater)
Love to all,
Jules
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