One of the members on the Grouper Moon Team this year is Janelle Layton. She is a masters student in Fisheries Science at Oregon State University and works with Dr. Scott Heppell. Her research focus is concentrated on the impacts of climate change on Nassau grouper by understanding differences in both morphological traits and gene expression.

This research will help to predict what might happen to the Nassau grouper due to increasing ocean temperatures as a result of climate change.

Earlier today, I got a tour of Janelle and Scott’s lab that has been set up in one of the bedrooms at our rental house on Little Cayman.

Janelle has set up 6 large bins/tanks with sea water. She is keeping the different tanks at various temperatures to represent the rising ocean temperatures that scientists are predicting over the next 100 years. The first set of tanks is at 27 ° C, the second is 29° C, and the third is 31° C. She also has control tanks that are set at 25 ° C. The first set of tanks at 27° C represents the current water temperature that we have been recording at the aggregation site. This is already an increase of 2°C from what the researchers first recorded when they began the Grouper Moon Project 20 years ago.

This evening we hope to collect some eggs from the spawning Nassau groupers! Janelle and Scott will then put the eggs in the various tanks and look at the impacts of the higher ocean temperatures on the larvae. They will examine the gene expression of heat shock proteins.

Stay tuned to see if we have spawning on this evening’s dive! Make your predictions on whether or not the team will see the Nassau grouper spawn in the comments.