Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation
Providing science-based solutions to protect and restore ocean health
Our journey into the depths of the Caribbean Region as part of the Protist Prophets research has yielded groundbreaking discoveries, thanks to the tiny yet mighty foraminifera. These microscopic organisms have revealed crucial insights about the health and history of …
My name is Riley Ames, and I am a second-year oceanography and marine biology student at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. I have been working in the marine geosciences laboratory studying foraminifera since 2022, and I spend most of my time outside of class in the lab. I greatly enjoy my work there; in fact, I have discovered my passion for micropaleontology through my work on benthic foraminifera. I currently work on the identification of foraminifera. Primarily, I worked on completing the New Caledonia…
Today’s guest blog comes from Zachary Adams, an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Miami working on our Protist Prophets project. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, uses foraminifera found in sand samples we collected on the Global Reef Expedition to assess the long-term health of coral reefs.
Coral reef bleaching has been in the headline news this past summer, as it was the hottest three-month period on record. As ocean temperatures soared to 32°C (90°F) around the Florida Keys and the Caribbean, coral reefs were way past their temperature threshold and started to bleach. But what happens when a coral bleaches?
Coral bleaching is a phenomenon that occurs when coral polyps expel the symbiotic (mutually beneficial) algae called zooxanthellae from their tissues, causing the corals to lose their color and turn white or pale. These algae provide the corals with essential nutrients through photosynthesis and contribute to their vibrant colors. When coral polyps expel the zooxanthellae, it not only leads to the loss of color but also affects the overall health and survival of the coral reefs…
The reefs surrounding the Beqa Lagoon in Fiji have endured many events that threaten their ability to survive, including bleaching events, crown-of-thorns outbreaks, and cyclone damage. These reefs are incredibly important to the people of the region, and to save them, the surrounding villages and communities want to have a pulse on the health of their marine resources. To help manage these threats and monitor locally managed marine areas, or tabu,the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is working with Mila Matairakula, a master’s student and Pacific Blue Foundation’s Environmental Officer. Her project, Small Scale Assessment of Changes in Coral Genus Using the Machine Learning Tool, CoralNet: A Case Study in Rukua Village, Beqa, will focus on streamlining in-water survey protocols to develop a more accurate and cost-effective method for coral reef monitoring.
One of the first test sites in Beqa Lagoon is Rukua Village, which has several traditional protection areas (tabu) and designated fishing grounds (qoliqoli). These areas have historically been managed locally by community members to help keep fishing pressure and coral reef damage to a minimum. However, there have not been sufficient monitoring protocols to evaluate how these managed areas are faring. If the coral reef ecosystem is stressed and overfished, it greatly affects the lives and food security of the village…
This guest blog was written by Nora Downing, an undergraduate student at the University of Miami working in the Foram Lab. Her work is helping build an index of coral reef health using benthic foraminifera picked from sand samples collected …
Hello, my name is Meghan Doyle and I am a senior at the University of Miami, majoring in marine science and biology, as well as a volunteer in the Foram Lab. During my time as a lab assistant, I have …
With compelling evidence that we have lost half of the world’s tropical coral reefs over the last few decades, there is an urgent need to understand their overall health. Without this basic information to use as a baseline, it is near impossible to mount a response to the so-called global reef crisis. The most straightforward method we have for monitoring reefs is conducting SCUBA diver surveys. However, this type of field work is logistically and financially challenging to execute on large scales, so developing a new method to monitor reefs remotely is key.
In attempt to find a solution, Anna Bakker combines the fields of remote sensing, computer science, and ecology to measure reef health from space. Recently, Anna published a paper in Coral Reefs, which utilized the Living Oceans Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition field dataset to build a model that can predict coral cover and other metrics of coral reef health using open-source satellite data.
Coral reef ecosystems are rapidly declining due to numerous local and global pressures such as climate change and pollution. In response to the coral reef crisis, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Ocean Foundation (KSLOF) conducted the Global Reef Expedition (GRE) to assess the state of coral reefs in 16 countries around the world. The expedition helped generate extensive data collection including coral reef maps and benthic surveys and 2,500 sediment samples from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. After traveling more than 50,000 km conducting research, the GRE’s valuable data opens the curiosity to explore unconventional approaches to globally evaluate coral reef health.
Now, the Khaled Sultan Living Oceans Foundation and the University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (UM-RSMAS) are working together on a new project called Protist Prophets. Run by Dr. Sam Purkis’s lab at RSMAS and funded by the National Science Foundation, this exciting project uses the sediment samples KSLOF collected on the GRE to evaluate global reef health using benthic foraminifers (forams) as markers of environmental changes and stressors. Our innovative scientific efforts will inform reef conservation strategies and develop non-traditional reef management techniques. Plus, we will assemble the Little Creature with a Big Message educational curriculum using the foram data to complement the foundation’s existing Coral Reef Ecology Curriculum available in the KSLOF Educational Portal.
Forams as bioindicators of coral reef health The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) is working with our partners at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project called “Protist Prophets …
