I learned so much on my first 5-week field season to Indonesia 🇮🇩 - what a great way to end my first year as a PhD student! Here's a mega-#thread of what I (+ the field team) was up to (w/ lots of pictures): 
🧬 @ErinBorbee and I started off by getting our research permits sorted + teaching a workshop on amplicon sequencing and environmental DNA at @ipb_fpik.
⛵️ Then, the field team was off to Misool, one of four main islands in Raja Ampat ("the Four Kings"). This archipelago system likely contains the highest marine biodiversity in the world, right in the heart of the Coral Triangle. We stayed on a liveaboard with an excellent crew!
🌊On the liveaboard, teams of divers collected water samples for environmental DNA (#eDNA) and surveyed transects for fish and benthic diversity in both protected and gear-restricted zones.
💙 Appreciation post for how healthy most of the reefs were and the insane amount of fish diversity. Raja Ampat is home to 75% (>550) of the world's coral species and ~1400 fish species. No wonder it's known as the Coral Triangle's 'Species Factory'!
🐟 I was primarily on the grouper gut content team, who purchased all the groupers caught by a guild of fishermen. By dissecting, collecting, and sequencing these species' gut contents, we can begin reconstructing reef food webs using metagenetics.
🥼 After 10 days in the field, we returned to @ipb_fpik and started doing labwork. Not the most glamorous part of the trip, but important nonetheless! Here's a time-lapse of a typical day:
🎣 I spent my last week learning about coral reef fisheries in Lombok with a group from the U. of Mataram. Each morning, we visited landing sites and documented the catches. I took fin clip samples to start building a genetic database of Indo fish.
...and thats all for now! My final thoughts are that of gratitude for the opportunity to do this work and the team of wonderful scientists + locals who made it all possible. Can’t wait to crack into this dataset & for the next trip! 🤩
