International Year of the Reef - Singapore Celebrations

Date: 9 Aug (Sat)
Time: 2pm
Venue: Function Hall, Botany Centre, Singapore Botanic Gardens (above Taman Serasi foodcourt), more about getting there.
Contact: iyor08singapore@gmail.com

Schedule of talks and activities

10.30am: "Life and Death at Chek Jawa" sharing experiences of a study of mass deaths on Chek Jawa following flooding in 2007, a talk by Loh Kok Sheng (more about the talk)

11.30am: “Wishing upon a Star” about our Knobbly sea stars, a recent emergence of baby Knobblies and discovery of a large population at Cyrene Reef, a talk by Tan Sijie, Star Trackers (more about the talk)

12.30-1pm: MAD for turtles (make a difference for turtles) : Games for kids about threats to turtles and how kids can help, by Cicada Tree Eco-Place and the Raffles Institution with four stations. Suitable for kids aged 4-8 years. (more about the event).

• Fishing for help: a 'fishing' game .
• Turtles and jellyfish: a story and animation with a simple computer-based game.
• Turtles and reefs game: a more vigorous activity.
  
• Pledge card signing.
  

2pm: “Are there reefs left in Singapore?” lifting the veil to reveal the hidden biodiversity of this almost forgotten realm, a talk by Jeffrey Low, NParks Biodiversity Reference Centre (more about the talk).

3pm: “Southern Haunt” about diving at Pulau Hantu, bringing clarity to the usually murky waters with underwater photos and videos, a talk by Debby Ng, Hantu Bloggers (more about the talk)

4pm: "Green, Mean, Photosynthesizing Machines!" a talk by Yang Shufen, TeamSeagrass and NParks Biodiversity Reference Centre (more about the talk)

-

Looking forward to the talks.
Click HERE for more details.

Environmental Courses

DHI-NTU Education Hub Courses

The Green Room Cafe

Decided to blog more about my road to vegetarianism. Have been being good, staying clear of fish and only eating meat maybe 3 meals a week. Confession - been indulging when doing outfield work. Excuse being it's easy to get hungry not eating meat when u do active stuff, plus it's damn paiseh to be the deciding factor of where to makan when the survey team is all so hungry by the middle of the day. But I have to find a way to get around this.

Other musings of a vegetarian noob: it's bloody inconvenient to be vegetarian when u're eating out. The few credible makan places I've gone to only have a small (usually pathetic) number of vegetarian options on their menu. So when H saw on today's Straits Times Life! that The Green Room Cafe was a 100% vegetarian restaurant and chill place to boot, we headed down immediately. It was right next to a really nice bar and I swear the area is a neighbourhood version of Dempsey. Not in the habit of bringing a camera everywhere i go so no personally taken photos, but here's some shots from the Cafe's website:

vegetarian 'mutton' curry

$12.80

"thick and tangy curry flavoured with turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, curry leaf and chilli powder
served with organic brown rice"

portobello field mushroom

$12.80

"marinated in rich aged balsamic vinegar, topped with our homemade tomato relish served between a fresh baked bun with a fresh summer leaf salad"

H had the vegetarian 'mutton' curry and loved it, even being a non-vegetarian and a fussy eater. Me had the gnocchi ($13.00): "potato dumplings in a roma tomato and italian basil sauce finished with shaved parmigiano". No photo of my dish on the website but it was really good. The portobello mushroom is something i'll definitely try the next time I head down.

Food: Great
Food presentation: Great
Service: Excellent
Ambience: Amazing

Other vegetarian recommendations include the Cedele restaurant at Raffles City and vietnamese restaurant Va Va Voom at Seah Street opposite Raffles Hotel (though the later has only a few veg options).

Happy makaning!

IYOR'08 Web Seminar Series

An entire series of lectures by International Year of the Reef 2008 at your fingertips.
-

Learn more about topics like:

• Managing top predators: Reef shark fisheries
• Connectivity, climate change and the future for reef fishes
• Muddy Waters: Water quality and run-off

Pity most of these lectures are based on the Great Barrier Reef. What happened to the Coral triangle?

The only lectures that were more regional (on South-east Asia) are these two:

• Power to the people: 25 years of reef management in the Philippines
• Before and after the Asian tsunami: Lessons for coastal management

and this one I think is particularly interesting:

• Rising Plague: Diseases in marine organisms and climate change

Check it out.

Spineless but vicious

Stumbled upon a Biology grad's blog: The Other 95% (love the blog name) and came across this video. octopus makaning a shark. kick ass man.

Sex in the Tropics: Coral Spawning '08

Friday, 25th April.

3rd day of 2008 coral spawning event.
Pulau Satumu, aka Raffles Lighthouse 8.30pm.
-

Had the privilege of assisting MBL labbies in their coral spawning projects. Even though there were quite a few hints of murphy's law working that night, any spawning dive is still a good dive. :)

A few facts on coral spawning before the pix:

• Coral mass spawning has been hypothesized to "increase the chances of gametes meeting, enhance the possibility of outbreeding and toswamp opportunistic predators".
  
• Coral spawning in Singapore was first recorded by Dr James Guest of Tropical Marine Science Institute, NUS in 2002.
• It was the first record of coral spawning in the tropics ("In equatorial regions where sea temperature range and tidal amplitude are often small, it was predicted that reproductive seasonality and synchrony between species would be reduced")
• Synchronous spawning occurs on the 3rd to 5th nights after the full moon between 8 and 10 p.m.
• At least 18 different coral species from ten genera and five families (Acroporidae, Faviidae, Merulinidae, Oculinidae and Pectiniidae) have been observed to spawn in our waters!
  

Other accounts of mass spawning events: in the Phillippines 2008, Singapore 2006

also check out the nurse shark they spotted on day 2 of spawning! damn jealous la. anyhow.. YJ and I saw a gigantuous pufferfish (1m long?) and a super cute decorator-sponge crab. too bad din bring camera down.. oh well... More on E1's underwaterlover blog and SY's urbanforest blog

Photos below are from SY & YJ from the first two nights of spawning...

Acropora ready to burst/ bursting with eggs

-

close up of the polyps
-

Pink among the green.
-

blob blob
-

ooooooh.. haha
-

Noob's post dive thoughts of coral spawning:

• Have a theory that the more sotongs our boatmen catch, the more spawning there is
• The fishes seem to know when the corals are gg to spawn, with more schools this month than in May when YJ did her check-out dive.
  
• Wonder how climate change are/will be affecting this synchronous spawning event. Felt like the spawning seemed less than last year's. Couldn't see the pink blobs floating on the water surface. But then again maybe coz it was already the last (3rd) day of spawning.

Till next year...

P.S.: Marine bio lab is always looking for competent *and* committed divers to assist in their work dives. Interested divers need to be medically certified and have experience in diving in local waters. Feel free to contact Angie at angieseow@nus.edu.sg

BBC: Penguins spotted flying to tropical rainforests

from Environmental Graffiti.
well with hail storms in Singapore, everything seems possible nowadays right?
*grinz*




-
Happy April Fools. :)