During the first part of the trip to Bermuda, Professors Robertson and Livdahl brought us to different coves and bays on both the North and South shores of the island in order that we might get acquainted with certain sites in which we could conduct research.

After snorkling at several sites on the island, I decided to focus on two bays on the North shore in which I found a healthy population of Scaridae. In each of these places I was able to set up a system with which to count the number of bite marks per square meter as well as the number of bites per minute and the number of bites per "stop" during the fish's foraging for food. My hope was to find a correlation between the type and maturation of each parrotfish and its bite foraging pattern. I also made a general survey of parrotfish in the area, hoping to find a general estimate of the number of actively foraging fish in each coral area.  The bite and population density of the fish extends to my curiousity about the effects of the fish on the coral reef. Unfortunately since we only had a week to collect data, I was unable to make long-term observations on the health of the reef in relation to parrotfish feeding patterns, so this part of my research was purely based on research done by other scientists. I take a closer look at the relationship between the role of Scaridae foraging and the health of previously studied reefs here.

The Bays - Tobacco Bay and Whalebone Bay

In order to count the number of bites per square meter, I took a quadrat with an area of .25 m²  and found areas in which there was clear evidence of Parrotfish grazing. I placed the quadrat in the area of highest density and counted the bite marks in this quadrat. I then placed the quadrat directly to the right, directly to the left, and above and below the initial site of the quadrat in order to get a good idea of the density of foraging marks in the area. For each of the two bays, I was able to find five clear examples of these foraging sites and in some cases was even able to observe the parrotfish in action. I was able to come back to the sites over two days and ran the counts one more time in order to obtain a more accurate count. On the first day, the tide was low and the bite marks were easy to discern as many of them were above water or submerged only a few inches; however when I came back the second day at high tide, the sites were covered with water. During low tide, while the sites were above water, the parrotfish were unable to reach them and therefore unable to forage. As the tide rose, the fish were able to once again forage on the rocky substrate. The image on the side is a clear example of the foraging marks made by parrotfish at the Tobacco Bay site. They are easily visible here above the water at low tide.

In each of the bays, I found five initial phase (IP) Rainbow Parrotfish and five Terminal Phase (TP), as well as five IP and five TP Stoplight Parrotfish. Juvenile parrotfish species were too hard to distinguish and the fish were small and fast, so I excluded them from my study as I would not be able to get accurate data. Tests were done over the course of four days. Day one consisted of tracking initial phase Rainbow Parrotfish at each bay, day two was spent tracking the terminal phase Rainbow Parrotfish, and days three and four followed the same pattern for the Stoplight Parrotfish. I followed each of these fish for ten minutes, counting both the number of times they foraged as well as the number of bites per forage. I attempted to maintain a safe distance away as to not disrupt their feeding behavior. These numbers were then tallied to create a chart of the parrotfish studied and their feeding behaviors (see results).
                        
                   Stoplight Parrotfish foraging

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