Category Archives: Reef Health
URGENT CALL TO ACTION TO CONSERVE AND RESTORE SHALLOW-WATER CORAL REEFS 24Jun2025
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