Streams, rivers, and more streams

This semesters Tropical Stream Ecology course went well! Students, staff and faculty were excited to learn and get a little dirty as we investigated the health of five of Belize’s streams: Mopan, Barton Creek, Sibun, Caves Branch, and lastly the little stream with no name right outside of St. Margaret's Village. With ecoli gels, dissolved oxygen and turbidity tests, to name a few, in hand we set out to find what was swim able and what was off limits. The big interest was the health of our local river the Mopan which runs along the edge of Nabitunich. Unfortunately, the tests available to us were not extensive enough to determine the safety of the water so we remain merely spectators of Mopan. Chemical tests were not the only determining factor of health we looked at. Aqua Dan had extensive knowledge of our little aquatic invertebrate friends. At each stream a kick seine was used to catch aquatic inverts so we could classify and separate them into pollution tolerance groups. We found an abundance of stonefly nymphs, mayfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs and right handed snails which are all signs of a healthy stream system. Here is a sample of a typical aquatic invert collection.


By far the most exciting collection we made was of Belizean Fish!!! All of the sudden stream ecology starting looking more and more like Marine Ecology as we collected colorful cichlids, guppies and a wide range of mosquito fish species. Marine is not the only class snorkels are worn in anymore. We ended the week with presentations and a trip to Cayo Twist. Students, remember to continue to bring your smiles whenever you are sampling streams in Belize!