Queen Conch Research Assistant

This position is needed to meet the field work, data entry, data analyses, and equipment maintenance requirements of a synoptic queen conch survey in the Florida Keys to determine the species status with respect to its potential listing under the Endangered Species Act.  To do this, we will conduct surveys of the backreef and deepwater aggregations to enumerate Florida’s conch population.Backreef aggregation surveys are conducted by locating a 100m basetape along a margin of the aggregation and placing five perpendicular “belts” that bisect the aggregation.  All conch will be enumerated within 1m of either side of the belts using SCUBA.  To get the area of the aggregation, a snorkeler will swim the periphery with a GPS in a waterproof bag and the area will be calculated within a GIS. The person(s) who will fill this position will be required to snorkel extensively and may be required to use SCUBA as needed.  The surveys of deepwater conch will use FWC vessels to tow a submersible camera with video recording capabilities along transects immediately seaward of the reef.  When an aggregation is identified, the same method as previously detailed for the backreef surveys will be employed when possible except in this case, all field work will be accomplished using SCUBA.  For those aggregations that are too deep to safely accomplish the surveys, etimations will be made from the vessel using the remote camera equipment.  Additional work will include laboratory analyses of the video tape for population assessment.