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Susanne Bähr

@scienceatdepth

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Postdoc @calacademy • SF 📍🇺🇸
CCR diver & UW photographer sharing the science of coral reefs 🔬
🦀🐠🪸💙

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Good buoyancy is essential for scientific diving, even if it doesn’t always look particularly graceful! 🤿🪸

Whether we’re running fish transects or searching for tiny creatures hidden within coral reefs, being able to control our position underwater is crucial to avoid damaging the very ecosystems we’re studying.

During this expedition, I was studying coral-dwelling gall crabs 🦀, tiny crustaceans that spend their lives tucked away inside corals. Recording their abundance meant getting my head into every little nook and cranny to find them.

So while these underwater acrobatics might look a little chaotic, the movements are actually deliberate and carefully controlled, with breathing helping me fine-tune my buoyancy.

Scientific diving isn’t always pretty, but there’s a reason for the weird positions! 😂

Big thanks to @coralreeffish for documenting my work during the expedition and capturing these very graceful moments! 📸 taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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5 days ago

Diving on Noronha’s reefs luckily often includes seeing a few sharks. This juvenile Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezii) was particularly curious and came over to check us out while we were busy with our transects.

We also noticed that it looked unusually skinny, although from a brief underwater encounter it’s hard to know why.

Reef sharks are important components of coral reef food webs, and healthy shark populations are often associated with reefs under lower fishing pressure and stronger protection. Their presence alone doesn’t necessarily mean a reef is healthy, but seeing them regularly is certainly a good sign. #coralreef #shark #underwaterphotography #brazil taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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12 days ago

What does an ecological survey team bring underwater? Some essential field gear is less sophisticated than you might think. A surprising amount of it starts at the hardware store, then gets adapted to the job.

Our expedition brought researchers from several institutions together to contribute to a long term reef monitoring effort. Here’s what everyone brought into the field:

📏 Suzy brought a transect tape and homemade slates to record the crabs living in association with stony corals.

✏️ Alexia, proudly showing off her trick for not losing her precious pencil, conducted transects to survey reef fish communities.

📝 Lucas used an old but effective technique: a PVC pipe around his arm on which he can write underwater while conducting fish surveys.

📷 Tito carried the large photo quadrat. It keeps the camera at a consistent distance from the seafloor so photographs can be used to compare benthic communities.

🔨 Carla brought a hammer, chisel, and plenty of pre-labeled bags to collect stony coral samples for DNA and symbiotic algae analyses.

🐠 My job was to document which species we encountered and capture photographs that show the details needed for identification. For that, a good underwater camera setup was my most important piece of gear.

Different tools, different questions, and a lot of practical solutions that make field science possible. taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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18 days ago

I’m a little too late to hop on the “yes, but” trend, so I changed it up slightly to show how the underwater shots actually come to be.

Thanks to @coralreeffish for capturing these moments!

First up is Stegastes pictus, a Brazilian endemic damselfish that I really fell in love with while diving in Fernando de Noronha. I especially love all those little blue details.

Next up is the moray Muraena pavonina. I found three of them hanging out together in the same spot, which made for a pretty perfect photo opportunity. They’re especially common around northeastern Brazil and definitely among the most photogenic morays.

This was a really cool find: an undescribed Emblemariopsis blenny. These tiny fish live tucked into holes in coral rubble or live corals, which makes them very easy to swim straight past.

They’re signal blennies, which means the males use their dorsal fin as a visual signal, flashing it to attract mates.

#underwaterphotography #coralreef #biodiversity #brazil #expedition taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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21 days ago

This might be the best way to arrive with your gear for a scientific expedition.

Fernando de Noronha is one of the only places where a buggy is actually the main mode of transportation. And yes, one buggy really does fit the science gear, dive gear, and cameras for two researchers.

Kicking off our expedition here on the island. Follow along for more expedition content over the next few days! 🤿🔬 taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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23 days ago

Kicking off the Fernando de Noronha expedition with an eerie dive at Caverna da Sapata. In the crystal-clear waters around this oceanic island, the blues are just uniquely beautiful.

Inside the cave, we were welcomed by this large stingray (Hypanus berthalutzae), patiently resting on the sand and seemingly very happy to have its photo taken.

We encountered a large number of predators around the cave, including this black jack (Caranx lugubris) cruising along the reef.

Just outside the cave, the reef begins, formed by many large colonies of Montastraea cavernosa. #brazil #coralreef #underwaterphotography #biodiversity #science taken in Fernando de Noronha by @scienceatdepth

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24 days ago

Divers often have checklist species they really want to see, but I think the same is true for behaviours. The spawning of hamlets (Hypoplectrus spp.) was definitely one of those for me.

Right around sunset, hamlets pair up and begin their spawning dance. They’re simultaneous hermaphrodites, and during a series of spawning rises the two fish alternate reproductive roles, taking turns releasing eggs.

I got to photograph a few pairs on Bonaire earlier this year, and it was very cool to finally catch this behaviour in action. #coralreef #underwaterphotography #biodiversity #bonaire #reeffish taken in Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands by @scienceatdepth

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a month ago

Another little piece of my journey into rebreather science diving. 💙

This was my first CCR dive without my instructor, and at that point it still felt a bit like learning to dive all over again. Managing the unit, figuring out my buoyancy, and staying on top of everything happening underwater took a lot of concentration. Very humbling experience…

Huge thanks to @pieter_de_great_otter for coming along, watching me struggle for 90 minutes 😅, and taking some awesome shots as usual. Check out his beautiful cave diving photography!

There is still so much to learn and I’m very excited to share more about my journey to 100m over the next months!!!

#womeninscience #ccr #rebreatherdiving #technicaldiving #coralreef taken in Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands by @scienceatdepth

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2 months ago

This white beauty was long thought to be part of a single, widespread species, the thorny seahorse (Hippocampus histrix). Just recently have researchers untangled the group and recognized several distinct species hiding under that one name.

The one I photographed in Kenya in 2019 is Hippocampus amandavincentae, a newly described species from the western Indian Ocean. Little did I know at the time!

And aren’t those tiny red polka dots the cutest thing?
#underwaterphotography #macrophotography #coralreef #biodiversity #conservation taken in Kenya, Africa by @scienceatdepth

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2 months ago

This nudibranch (Goniobranchus geminus) looks like it has absolutely no time for Monday dread. Just proud, curious, and unapologetically flashy. Photographed in Kenya, and hopefully here to brighten everyone’s Monday. 💛

#underwaterphotography #underwatermacro #nudibranch #coralreef #biodiversity taken in Kenya by @scienceatdepth

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2 months ago

Meet this amazing little false cowrie, Aclyvolva. It lives on gorgonians, feeds on their polyps, and somehow manages to match its host almost perfectly. This one only caught my eye by accident while diving in the Red Sea. #underwaterphotography #coralreef #biodiversity #macrophotography #redsea taken in Red Sea, Saudi Arabia by @scienceatdepth

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2 months ago

I was absolutely spoiled to spend the shallow decompression of my first deep science dives exploring the stunning reefs of Palau. Plenty of time to hunt for gall crabs and take a gazillion photos of healthy reef landscapes. Thanks to @coralreeffish for capturing this moment at the remote Angaur island AMRS site. #Palau #coralreef #hollisrebreathers #biodiversity #conservation by @scienceatdepth

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3 months ago