Grouper Aggregation

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 9 Blacksaddled Groupers (Plectropomus laevis) are aggregating in Chagos. Groupers are usually solitary fish, except when it comes to spawning, when small groups or larger aggregations form to release large quantities of eggs and sperm …

Tawny Nurse Sharks

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 8 Within the first few days of surveying in Chagos, our fish and benthic surveyors have had multiple encounters with large and often pregnant tawny nurse sharks (Nebrius ferrugineus). Tawny nurse shark swims over the …

Giant Groupers

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 7 Before starting our research in Chagos, I read several reports stating how many fish we could expect to see during the mission. Chagos is supposed to have more fish than anywhere else in the …

Galapagos Corals May Predict the Future of Reefs Worldwide

The Galapagos Islands have been famous for a century and a half, but even Charles Darwin thought the archipelago’s list of living wonders didn’t include coral reefs. It took until the 1970s before scientists realized the islands did in fact …

Living Oceans Foundation studies Bahamian coral reefs

Energy behavior in virgin coral reef communities taught seven Bahamian researchers with the team of Living Oceans Foundation’s scientists how natural law operates in the isolated marine environment of Cay Sal Bank.  They spent 20 days at sea with 18 …

Q&A with filmmaker Alison Barrat

Alison Barrat’s film “Mapping the Blue” follows the story of the world’s largest marine park. The film is one of the entries in this year’s American Conservation Film Festival. Barrat lives in Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay, and works for …

Global Reef Expeditions Assess Coral Reef Health

Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia had a dream: to fund research expeditions focused on the health of the ocean. The dream became reality when the Living Oceans Foundation was founded in California. Global Reef Expeditions Assess Coral Reef …

Life in the Great Barrier Reef

Onboard the M/Y Golden Shadow, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is circumnavigating the globe to survey some of the most remote reefs on the planet. I recently joined their Global Reef Expedition, as a Fellow of the International …

An Unusual Endemic Coral

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 6 A species is said to be endemic if it is confined to a defined region like an island, country or geographical zone. As we move our research from the West Pacific to the Indian …