Our Grouper Moon Project 2021 Team!

Nassau groupers are typically seen in what is considered their ‘barred’ color phase. This phase is their non-spawning phase and consists of brown and white bands with blotches along the sides of the grouper. Each Nassau grouper has a pattern that is unique to only him or her, sort of like our fingerprints. This unique pattern is being used by researchers to photo identify the fish using AI software.

The day of spawning, the team noticed several things on the morning dive that were clues that  the spawning might start later that evening. They noticed that the female groupers bellies were swollen with eggs, and many more of the fish were in the bi-color or dark phase. There were very few fish in the normal or barred color phase.

An important part of the dives and research is estimating the population of Nassau grouper at the spawning aggregation site. Both fish faces and video pan research methods are used for this, in addition to each team member’s estimates of the number of fish after each dive. After each dive, each diver completes a diver interview. The questions consist of where the fish were, what percent of each of the color phases the fish were in, what task the diver was assigned to, where the fish were located, what color phase the fish were in, what other species were noted, in addition to anything else the diver wishes to share about their dive. These interviews help the researchers to categorize footage, estimate the fish population, and record important anecdotal data about the dive. Attached is my video after Sunday evening’s exciting and very EPIC dive since it was the first night of the Nassau grouper spawning! 

If you’re a teacher reading, you can have your students watch a video of the spawning aggregation site on a ‘virtual dive’ and they can work in pairs to do their own ‘diver interviews’ to practice their speaking and listening skills.

Example diver interview for students.