[Global Scientists Team Up with Palau to Study Coral Reefs] The Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) is teaming up with Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation to conduct an extensive survey of Palau’s coral reefs this month. Coral Reef Research Foundation is also part of the research, which will compose of a team of scientists to collect information on the state of Palau’s coral reefs. The Living Ocean’s Foundation team and the Palau Scientists and researchers team will be conducting their research with the help of the research vessel the M/Y Golden Shadow and will be covering the reefs around Angaur, Peleliu, Ngerchong, Ngeruktabel, Koror, Babeldaob, Ngkesol , Ngerael, Kayangel, and Ngeruang/Velasco in their month-long expedition. Living Oceans Foundation scientific research leader Dr. Andrew Bruckner said that the foundation’s Global Reef Expedition focus of the research is to study what makes Palau’s reef unique, what makes it resilient and compare it to the other coral reefs around the world. Bruckner told reporters here that the foundation has devised protocols to enable to compare different coral reefs around the world to see how resilient they are to changes such as oceans acidification. In Palau, researchers have earlier discovered that reefs in Nikko Bay are thriving despite high level of acidification. Bruckner said that research or survey will also include the study of acidity of the water of the water and temperature, to put together photo transects to use as archive, which can be later, utilized for study. He added the research would also look at the biodiversity of coral reef and species abundance in the coverage of the study. The expedition will only look into the recovery of the coral reefs after stressors like from a typhoon and El Nino event. The research is part of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation’s five-year Global Reef Expedition, a mission to survey coral reefs around the world. The Foundation has recently completed similar research in the Solomon Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, in Tonga, Fiji, The Cook Islands, and New Caledonia. The Foundation after the expedition will be coming up with an initial assessment and months after will provide a full report, which will be provided to Palau. Tia Belau News. January 12, 2015.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:39:49 +0000