RESILIENCE & RECRUITMENT PROJECT PHOTOS

APR 2009

Photographs by Project Team members

 
NOTES
CCMI's Scientist in Residence, Claire Dell (left), with CCMI President, Dr. Carrie Manfrino (center), and University of Newcastle student, Kate Wilson (right), at the Little Cayman Research Center. The team is exploring Coral Reef Resilience and Recruitment in Little Cayman's reefs by examining the growth, survival, and distribution of juvenile corals.

2008

Photographs by Project Team members

 
NOTES
Juvenile corals are marked with numbered aluminium tags nailed into dead coral nearby. Juveniles are measured with calipers annually to measure their growth. Some will have grown larger while others may have died in the interim year.

2007

Photographs by Project Team members

 
NOTES
Juvenile corals are marked with numbered aluminium tags nailed into dead coral nearby. Juveniles are measured with calipers annually to measure their growth. Some will have grown larger while others may have died in the interim year.

A 30 meter tape is initially run out over part of a reef. A one meter square grid is then lightly placed meter by meter along the tape and each patch of reef inside the grid is photographed. Later, a computer program random marks a set of points on each of the 30 photographs and researchers identify the species highlighted by each point (coral, sponge, algae, etc). This gives us a measure of the amount of coral coverage in a given area. Over a period of several years, the data tells us whether coral coverage is expanding, shrinking or remaining constant.