Continuous Zooplankton Monitoring (Maldives)

Introduction to Plankton

Plankton is vital to human survival. Forming the first two levels of the marine food web, plankton essentially keeps the oceans alive and us along with it. Phytoplankton (the plant category of plankton) is also responsible for as much as 80% of the air we breathe!

Here at Marine Savers at Four Seasons Resorts Maldives, we have just started our own journey into plankton studies, with a focus on zooplankton. This is the animal side of plankton, and arguably the most interesting! A study of this size and time frame has not been seen in the Maldives before, and it is the first continuous plankton study of its kind in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Zooplankton feeds the world’s largest animal, the blue whale, as well as Baa Atoll’s charismatic megafauna that put it on the map – manta rays (for more details, refer to The Manta Trust: Mobulid Behavioural Ecology – and – Crittercam Reveals Manta Ray Feeding Secrets.)

Our Study

Our continuous study is to collect baseline data on zooplankton communities around Baa atoll, with the hope to expand nationwide, providing ample opportunities for local and international organisations, communities, NGOs and students to collaborate and create their own research projects supported by our data. Not only will we be able to provide long-term datasets, but we will also be standing by to provide training, support and hopefully ID workshops, to ensure good quality data is collected from all sample sites.

Our method uses the reliably tried-and-tested plankton tow net. With the right calculations and additional equipment, we can determine sampled water volumes and start to create a detailed model of zooplankton densities and diversity in target areas, while monitoring for changes over time using the detailed continuous data in our custom-built database. Other possible areas of research can be extended to include pollution, micro-plastics, biomass, and even climate change.

We encourage any interested collaborators to contact us at Landaa Giraavaru, and see how we can work together to better understand the unseen and under-studied animal communities living in the oceans around us.

Many thanks to our overseas mentors for their continued expertise and guidance throughout :
MBA [UK] (Dave Conway), and CSIRO [AUS] (Dr Anthony Richardson and Frank Coman).

March 2021

We are waiting for delivery of sampling equipment to start our new zooplankton study. We are kindly supported by the Marine Biological Association (MBA), who have been at the forefront of global oceanic plankton sampling for the last 60 years. We will continue to stay in contact with the MBA for future collaboration opportunities.

We have also been in discussions with the new resident Assistant Manager at the Manta Trust, who is interested in studying plankton in Hanifaaru bay for a PhD. We are confident that we can provide mutually beneficial data, methodologies and ID development in this new inter-agency collaboration (that we hope to grow and develop).

April

While we await the equipment delivery, we have created a simple database to use for data collection. We have also been collating a library of scientific papers on plankton (Indian Ocean, climate change, etc).

We held a video call with zooplankton expert, Anthony Richardson, (CSIRO Australia), discussing formalin concentrations (with safe handling/disposal), and the actual identification of the zooplankton (majority will be copepods). We plan to purchase:

• Flow meter (vital for getting volume measurements and adding validity to our data)
• Small oven (to determine biomass of samples, widening our scope of applications at a low upfront cost)
• Scientific weighing scales (to weigh dried samples)

This is a great opportunity to be the first long-standing plankton study in the Maldives, with potential for future growth and interaction both locally and globally.