Discussion:

An apparent pattern emerged among the school indicating that this schooling behavior is not random, but carefully orchestrated. With more time, I would have liked to examine the impact of the sargassum on the bay, taking samples to look for plankton which could indicate causes of the school, such as consumption, shelter, or mating. A longer study would also allow the more careful observation of movement patterns, predation on the bait fish, and species/gender construction of the school. An attempt to find a correlation between the accumulation of sargassum in the bay and the diminishing number of fish could also be attempted.

A deeper look at the relation to school size and moon cycles, along with seasonal relation to the school would be possible. Could certain weather patterns and hydrodynamic events result in a changed behavior of the school?

The lunar cycle is linked to spawning in silversides, herring, and goby (4,5,9,10). Our time in Bermuda was during a Full-Moon.

Overall, there could be no definitive conclusions drawn with such limited amount of time. Patterns did start to emerge, however. The introduction of the sargassum was unexpected and only added to the number of questions.

Initially, my hypothesis was that these bait fish were being herded into Whalebone Bay by predators. That was disproved prior to my research by simple observations. The spawning cycle in 2008 could have drifted later than usual for the bait fish resulting in a spawning event during the full moon in mid-October. The sargassum could also be a factor, bringing in large quantities of food for the juvenile fish (11). Collection of samples to verify an increase of plankton prior to and after the arrival of the sargassum would be helpful. As it stands, the most likely scenario involves a spawning event for the bait fish in Whalebone Bay.