The Living Ocean Foundation's Global Reef Expedition
From 2013 to 2015, I was fortunate enough to have traversed a good portion of the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a fellow with the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.
My goal on these research expeditions was to sample the model coral for research Pocillopora damicornis/acuta at a variety of environmental conditions and health states (i.e., healthy, bleached, diseased) in order to gain insight into the environmental physiology of this species. In the process, I have been designing a molecular biomarker-based diagnostics test for assessment of coral health. I currently have a plethora of samples and am actively looking for collaborators! For a list of all samples available for sharing, please click here (more detailed) or here (less detailed). I have included a table below that shows where I am in the sample and data processing. Otherwise, here is a list of the locations I visited with LOF (linked to the pages where you can find more information):
1. French Polynesia (Austral Islands)
2. Cook Islands
3. Fiji
4. Tonga
6. Great Barrier Reef (northern, Coral Sea section)
8. Palau
9. Chagos
For beautiful, detailed habitat maps of all reefs surveyed as part of the GRE (barring Palau and Chagos as of May 2019), please go here. The associated manuscript can be downloaded here. I am currently collaborating with LOF staff scientists, as well as Dr. Sam Purkis and his Ph.D. student Anna Bakker on making sense of this mind bogglingly large (and exciting) dataset.
The largest coral reef survey ever undertaken
Sampling a Pocillopora verrucosa colony in Palau
M.Y. Golden Shadow in Palau
I am working as hard as possible to get these data out, but if anyone is interested in samples, data, images, etc. please let me know: andersonblairmayfield@gmail.com. Also, please not that I included Taiwan and the Maldives in this table, though they were not part of the GRE. What I want to do is create something like what Judy Lang and her team have done and create “report cards;” whereas theirs are “coral reef reports cards,” I would like to generate “reef coral report cards” (see image below.) that speak to the health of the corals themselves (rather than the entire ecosystems). Seriously, look how beautiful (and informative) these reports are.
By the time this concept becomes a reality, I do worry that is might already be too late….