Category Archives: Reef Health
Recent AGRRA Webinars examine Coral Bleaching, Invasive Soft Coral, Restoration Efforts, Acropora Heat Mortality 6Jun2024
The Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA) website at www.agrra.org offers a large suite of educational materials and regional databases/interactive maps related to coral reefs in the Caribbean. A few of the resources are highlighted below. Cited as New … Continue reading
AGRRA on New Caribbean Coral Restoration Efforts 3May2024
“New Caribbean Coral Restoration Efforts” was the subject of the Caribbean Cooperation Team Network Meeting on April 8, 2024. A webinar recording of the full proceedings is now available, courtesy of AGRRA (Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment). From a … Continue reading
“Corals in danger, coastal protection chief warns” – Barbados Today 17Apr2024
“Barbados’ coral reefs are in serious trouble, even as officials try to restore their health and protect them from a deadly heat wave that has decimated them worldwide. “Director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) Leo Brewster said his … Continue reading
On Vauxhall Reef (Barbados) Millepora complanata but not M. alcicornis succumb to 2023 coral bleaching
Tom Goreau cited the Acropora and Millepora species as tho reef-building species most affected by extreme warming in the fall of 2023. Both the “true” coral A prolifera and the coral-like hydrozoan M. complanata occur, with the colonial zoanthid Palythoa caribeana, in the “A. … Continue reading
Complete dieback of Acropora prolifera (hybrid acroporoid coral) on Vauxhall Reef, Barbados in 2023 16Feb2024
The photos at left illustrate two A colonies by a large Diploria clivosa on the Reef Flat at Vauxhall. In the top photo, taken on Mar. 30, 2023, both colonies are entirely healthy. In the bottom photo, taken on Jan … Continue reading
Causative agent for die-off of long-spined sea urchin in 2022 identified 2May2023
The long-spined sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) is an important herbivore on Caribbean reefs. In 2022, there was a mass die-off of this sea urchin all over the Caribbean, echoing a similar die-off in the early 1980s. A paper reporting on … Continue reading
Presumptive Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease on Vauxhall Reef & Environs (Barbados) 25Jan2023
UPDATE Feb 16, 2023: SCTLD or White Plague Disease? – we don’t yet know. Based on some discussion I had recently with an authority on this disease, it’s not clear right now whether SCTLD is present in Barbados or whether what … Continue reading