Away 1200 km from Vitória/ES (Brazil’s southeast coast), Trindade Island was the destination of another expedition of the long-term monitoring program of the Brazilian oceanic islands PELD-ILOC. It was the 5^th expedition conducted by our group to the Trindade and Martin-Vaz complex, the eastern tips of the Vitória-Trindade seamount chain, an isolated and unique ecosystem from Brazil. This year, the team was composed by the four researchers Ph.D. Gabriel Cardozo-Ferreira (LECAR), Ph.D. Anderson Batista (UFES), M.Sc. Larissa Benevides (UFAL) and B.S. Thais Macedo (UFSC).

During the expedition, a series of activities were developed aiming to assess and monitoring different aspects in the island’ marine ecosystem, such as: reef fish assemblage, benthic cover composition, health status of Montastrea cavernosa coral colonies, population structure of the Aratu crab (Grapsus grapsus), and the structure of the sea urchin assembly. Moreover, the team also collected data other than the related to the monitoring itself but as part of ongoing researches related to PELD, for example, like samples of different coral species for DNA purposes, calcarean algae for molecular biology and fish specimens for trophic ecology studies.

The whole trip was immensely supported by the Brazilian Navy, from transport to the island to field support in the island. Trindade keeps the usual weather with scattered rains almost every day, but also bright sunny which helped us during all the dives, illuminating the incredibly blue water with its beautiful and diverse marine community (and warming us in the surface intervals and after the dives). Humpback whales sightenning was constant from the island and boat as well as their singing underwater. We were also able to see reef sharks, lots of barracudas, different colourful reef fish species, dolphins and hawksbill and green turtles. We’re back but already looking forward to the next expedition! See you soon, Trindade!