Habitat Mapping

Spring Break?

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 3 School is definitely in session here in Chagos! The fish team has had our hands full trying to identify, count, and size all the fish we’ve been seeing in our surveys. The reefs here …

Looks Can Be Deceiving

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 2 For our first mission to the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT), our research is concentrated on the southern banks of the Chagos Archipelago. This area includes a number of small islands and atolls. Our …

The Global Reef Expedition: Palau

National Geographic Voices – Ocean Views recently featured an article about the Global Reef Expedition‘s mission to Palau. The article is written by Keith Ellenbogen, Senior Fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) and member of the Palau …

The Faces and Functions of Algae on the Reef

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Expedition Log: Palau – Day 19 Algae, often referred to as “seaweed,” are underwater “plants” that, unlike land plants, lack a vascular system. Algae live underwater and obtain water, nutrients, and sunlight directly from the environment. Because algae don’t need …

Troubling Taxonomy

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Expedition Log – Day 12 One of the largest challenges for our coral surveys is the proper identification of the corals.  When measuring and counting corals along transects we rarely identify them to species, mainly because there are some 450 …

Turning Back the Hands of Time

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Expedition Log: Palau – Day 11 On most of the barrier reefs we’ve examined off the south and west coast of  Palau, the coral community has been thriving, with 60-90% of the bottom covered in a diverse assemblage of branching, …

Blue, You Say?

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Expedition Log: Palau – Day 10 While I perform my task of taking coral photo transects during our survey dives, I get a close look at the reef (one square meter at a time). One side effect of focusing my …

Angaur’s Marine Lakes

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Expedition Log: Palau – Day 9 After surveying the reefs located off Angaur, an oceanic Island about 10 km south of Peliliu, we headed ashore to explore the island.  Tucked away in a lush tropical rainforest at the northwestern end …

Rebirth of the Forest

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Expedition Log: Palau – Day 8 1998 was a bad year for coral reefs. In many parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans an unprecedented coral bleaching event swept across the reefs, killing much of the coral.  In some countries, …