InternEmma

"What are the leading causes of decline in staghorn corals in the keys?" --- Well that's a tricky question, to be honest. There are a whole slew of issues that are causing the decline in our staghorn populations. These corals are 'built to break', if you will, referring to their predominant form of reproduction: fragmentation. They grow intending to have their branches break off due to wave action, boat strikes, etc. which then roll across the reef, end up stuck somewhere, and reattach themselves to the reef as they continue to grow. This process worked amazingly well for hundreds of thousands of years, resulting in the massive thickets and vast fields of cervicornis that we may still find in scattered places across the ocean. However, when you factor in poor water quality, higher acidity, warmer temperatures, chemical and physical pollution, a steep decline in the diadema population, plus the increased human population (and thus more traffic on the reef), it's much more difficult for the fragments to attach and grow. Instead we're seeing a whole lot of breakage, and not enough reattachment. I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure I can give you a fast and clean answer listing out the leading causes. Our ocean is an open system so all of these factors work in tandem, building on one another to the detriment of our reefs. People who don't love the ocean as we do tend to forget (or not care) that almost everything they do affects the ocean in one way or another. CRF can only work on so many of these factors at a time, so we so appreciate you all taking an interest and spreading the word! Also movies like Chasing Coral, because that was awesome, am I right?? I love the questions so ask away! -Emma

Hi folks! We're alive!!! It's been a good long while since I've posted anything here for you all, but as you know there was a bit of a hurricane issue recently. To give you all the official update: CRF weathered the storm fairly well. Our facilities made it through unharmed, but two of our boats sustained minor damage. Overall, the nurseries fared well and we lost very few coral trees. Our greatest loss was to coral stock, in particular the staghorn production. Our priority is to fragment the staghorn and elkhorn stock in order to give those new fragments 4 - 6 months to grow to outplant size for 2018. But while we lost a small percentage of our stock, we did not lose any genotypes – our greatest asset in the nursery. Our large-scale restoration calls for a vast number of corals with great genetic diversity to ensure a resilient, healthy reef. Reef sites throughout the Keys saw damage to both outplanted and natural colonies. CRF is partnering with NOAA to repair damaged reef sites and to conduct assessments for all of our restoration work. Our work will continue and the need for healthy reefs has never been greater. Outplanting will move forward as planned for next year. In the meantime, CRF is hiring local divers and chartering dive boats to assist in our efforts. These shops are our partners throughout the year, so we’re trying to lend them a hand until the tourism resumes. We will aid in rebuilding our island community as we rebuild the reef! ------- I was out in the nursery just earlier today and it's not great, to be honest. The most surprising part is that things are buried! There was a whole lot of sand that washed into the nursery and buried some old pedestals and fallen corals so the cleanup effort is in full force. My boat was one of four in the nursery so it's all hands on deck (literally). We also wanted to let you know we'll be in the DC area coming up! There will be a showing of the movie Chasing Coral at the Patagonia store on Wisconsin Ave and a couple of our representatives will be joining for a panel discussion afterwards. If you haven't seen this film yet, I highly encourage you all to either come to the showing or watch it on your own time, it hits incredibly close to home for us here at CRF. Actually we were highlighted in the unedited version of the film, but they cut out that part to really drive home the point that the reefs aren't in great condition and we have to make some big changes. I cried at probably three separate times when I watched it, I'm such a sucker for the ocean. My computer is not letting me post a picture right now so I guess I'll just have to share all the information myself! Chasing Coral Premier October 12th, 2017 Doors at 7:00pm, movie at 7:30pm Patagonia Store 1048 Wisconsin Ave NW 202.333.1776 There will be snacks and drinks and a discussion panel afterwards so come hang out with us! Also this will be my final post (unless you all have questions or want to chat, of course), I'm handing the baton over to one or all of the new interns. It's been a pleasure talking with all of you, and I hope you can make it out to the movie! Happy Diving! -Emma

So happy to see you've made the trek down here! We have a new office now a little further south in Islamorada because we're turning the office in the picture into an interactive exploration center. There are new panels on the walls and new spaces for classroom activities so it's already looking like a whole new building! Once it's fully complete we'll use it as an education and visitor center and keep the new office as a work-only building. You should come visit us again once all the renovations are complete to see how much we've grown as an organization! As for the social media links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoralRestorationFoundation/ Instagram: @coralrestorationfoundation

Hello WAMAS! Things have been incredibly busy for us over here in Key Largo! We have three new interns joining us this semester and they all seem quite enthusiastic about diving right in to the job (pun intended). Also this weekend is one of our biggest projects as an organization: Coralpalooza!! The two-day coral planting extravaganza kicks off tomorrow (Friday June 2nd) with presentations on what we do here at CRF and hands-on training on how to outplant coral on the reef. Then, on Saturday, we're going to bring over 150 guests and volunteers on about 7 different dive boats out to the reef to outplant as many corals as we possibly can! After all this excitement the whole gang is meeting up for food, drinks, and good times at a local restaurant to wind down and exchange stories from the day. This weekend is sure to be a whirlwind of movement and excitement with all hands on deck, but I can't wait to see how many corals we end up planting in one day. Keep your eyes on our Facebook and Instagram pages because I'm sure there are going to be tons of awesome pictures posted throughout the weekend! All of this is in celebration of World Oceans Day which this year falls on June 8th. That's a very not-subtle hint to plan a celebration of your own! Even if it's just taking a stroll on the beach and picking up one straw, the ocean thanks you for it. Happy early Oceans Day! -Emma

So glad to hear you're jumping in to marine biology! It can be a challenging field but the view is spectacular. Megan and I work at Coral Restoration Foundation where we offer 3 internship opportunities a year, in the summer, fall, and spring for about four months each. The internships are quite dive-heavy; some weeks I'm on the water four to five days in a row, so it's definitely an amazing place to gain experience underwater. Additionally, being that we are a small non-profit group, you're exposed to every aspect of the organization like marketing, development, education, you name it. Personally, I've had an incredible time with CRF and they've been absolutely invaluable in helping me towards my future goals. If you have any questions about our internship program, or if you want to come down to Key Largo and volunteer with us, you can email me at emma@coralrestoration.org and I'll be more than happy to answer your questions! Happy diving!

Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking with us through this long absence. We've been away for the holidays and then picking up work again with four new interns has been much busier than we were expecting! The four newbies are adapting quite well to life here at CRF, although I don't think they were expecting it to be so intense right from the start. To be fair we are in full-blown production mode to try and get our corals ready to outplant according to the NOAA grant that we received. Every time we are in the nursery, now, we are working on one of the 50 genotypes that we have selected by cutting the corals into smaller pieces and hanging them back up on two trees per genotype. We need a LOT of corals to make this outplanting endeavor work, but with the mild winter we've had they should be growing pretty quickly, keep your fingers crossed for us! If it turns out we do not have the amount of corals we need to outplant them all in two waves before the end of the year there could be some serious issues for us, but let's not dwell on that. Megan and I have been putting together the new outplanting protocol for this grant which has proved to be incredibly difficult. The grant has very specific parameters to follow but coral reefs don't care about that, so it's been a struggle to alter the protocol to fit within both the limits of the grant, and the limits of the physical reefs. However, when all is said and done we will have beautiful thickets of staghorn and elkhorn corals for you all to come visit! Megan and I have been kept so busy that this is our only day in the office all week! As new Program Associates to the reef restoration department, we are often the first to be assigned to go out on boats, which is where we will be for the rest of the week! As always let us know if y'all have any questions or want to get in to the nitty-gritty details of anything we talk about; we're here to help! Best, Emma

Hello all! Emma here. Just wanted to give you guys an update on the goings on of CRF! The past month has been filled with a lot of movement within the organization as we adjust our practices to comply with our new NOAA grant! We're very excited about this opportunity. It's a $2.1 Million 3-year project to fully restore 8 reefs along Florida's reef tract. This means by the end of this project we're hoping to bring back quite a handful of Key Largo's reefs to their full potential! It's very exciting being able to work with such a prestigious organization on a project that will surely make an impact for generations to come. We're moving a lot of things around in our nursery, as well. Currently we have over 150 genotypes of staghorn coral, but in accordance with the NOAA grant, we will only be using 50. Instead of getting rid of all of these genotypes, we are creating a 'gene bank' area in the nursery where a few clippings of each extra genotype will be maintained to preserve genetic diversity. Additionally we have a 100 gallon aquarium that has only had three little fish in it for a long time. Luckily a local fish collector has given us a few additions! Now we have two rock beauties, some jawfish, two jackknife fish, a juvenile blue tang, and an ocean surgeonfish, in addition to a handful of atlantic pygmy angelfish and our urchins. It's looking like quite a festive tank! The sad news is recently one of the jackknife fish has died, and we have no clue as to why. The water quality is stable, and we take readings almost every day because we've had problems with it in the past. Any suggestions or general tips are always appreciated from people who definitely know what they're doing! We're all better with coral than fish. Today (Friday the 16th) is the last day of my and Megan's internships. However! We were lucky enough to be hired on next semester as Program Assistants for the Reef Restoration department so you all get us for another four months or so! As always, ask any questions you guys may have and we'll keep you updated on new experiments or developments as we get them! Happy Holidays! -Emma

Exactly! And because on any normal transport day we'd be driving the boat to a separate planting site, this little amount of wind was (in my opinion) actually beneficial to the experiment as a whole!

Originally we were going to place a tarp over all the corals to keep them out of direct sunlight. But we forgot the tarp (oops!). SO instead we just did our best to keep the corals in shade on the boat. They were just sitting in open-topped milk crates the whole time so exposure to the 'elements', if you will, was very high. However in my opinion it was better to not have a tarp because if we were to transport the corals dry we wouldn't have used one anyway; this way our experiment was more similar to an actual day of harvesting and planting!

Hello again, folks! We performed the experiment this past Friday with only a few bumps along the way. As any experiment goes there are always a few last-minute changes but all in all we got it done as expected! What we're looking for as we begin to monitor the trees is any occurrences of diseases, bleaching, or general poor health in the coral fragments. For instance we've already noticed that one of the genotypes we're using is holding up much better than the others when it's dry. Most of the dry corals (especially at the longer time frames) are paling in color, and just generally seem ill. We'll know a lot more as we go along but it seems like we could be getting some interesting results! Especially if those corals that seem to be 'sick' bounce back now that they're in our nursery. Megan and I will keep you guys updated on any findings, especially because it seems like the results would be useful to your interests, as well! I may be able to post some pictures from the nursery soon, I just have to upload the pictures from my camera and, frankly, I'm dragging my feet on that for some reason. Hopefully soon, though!

Hello, all! I'm Emma, one of the other interns this semester and I'd love to jump in on this topic! (Also sorry for the long message but there's a good joke at the end!) Hillary, let me see if I can help - Our normal operating procedure for transporting the corals is to put the coral pieces, or fragments, in milk crates while still underwater so that the corals stay co-located. Then when we bring them up to the boat, there are large bins (like ones used for storage in a garage) aboard that we fill with water right off the side of the boat and sink the milk crates into, so that the corals stay submerged in sea water. The corals stay in these bins for the ride out to the planting site which, depending on where we're going, can take up to 20 minutes. As soon as we are moored up or anchored by the planting site, we try and set up a 'home base' on a sandy patch underwater so that we can get our coral fragments back in the ocean as soon as possible. Even if they won't be planted for another few hours, we would rather have them underwater than on the boat. So one of the experiments that we are doing is questioning whether it is necessary to have the large bins of water on the boat for the corals to sit in during the drive to the planting site. It isn't a particularly long drive and the bins are rather cumbersome so we're testing to ensure we are being efficient with our methods. For the set up of the experiment there are 5 different time periods and one control (where the corals never leave the ocean). Each time period has a "wet transport" set of corals where the corals are sunk in the bins on the boat, and a "dry transport" set of corals where the corals are not sunk into bins, but instead sit dry in their milk crates on the boat deck (out of the way of all the movement and swinging dive equipment, of course!). I work better visually so here's a handy little chart: 0 minutes out of water - Control 15 minutes out of water - 1 crate of corals in the bins - 1 crate of corals on deck 30 minutes out of water - 1 crate of corals in the bins - 1 crate of corals on deck 60 minutes out of water - 1 crate of corals in the bins - 1 crate of corals on deck 90 minutes out of water - 1 crate of corals in the bins - 1 crate of corals on deck 120 minutes out of water - 1 crate of corals in the bins - 1 crate of corals on deck Each crate will have 30 corals in it so that's a lot of fragments we're dealing with! There's an additional component in this experiment where we're tracking different genotypes and how each individual genotype responds to each of our treatments, but that gets very nitty-gritty and confusing. I'd be happy to go in to it if you all would like, but it seemed like too much for this (already very long) message! Ultimately we want to see if corals we place in the water buckets really do survive better than the corals that were kept dry, or if there's only a noticeable difference after a certain amount of time has passed. There's another experiment we are considering as well that instead of having half of the corals in water and half in the air, that we would have half of the corals in water buckets with no bubblers, and half in buckets WITH bubblers, to determine if air circulation has an impact on survivorship of these corals. But that's another experiment for another day, seeing as we have our hands quite full with this one, already. As you can see there's a lot going on with just one experiment in the works, but we'll be sure to keep you all updated as we go! The weather has been super windy recently so we haven't been able to get out on the boats for a week and a half, but Friday looks like it could be the day. Fingers crossed!! As promised, here's the joke: What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? (A nervous wreck) Have a good day!! -Emma