Professor Andrea Grottoli and her team conduct fieldwork in the Florida Keys to study endangered Elkhorn corals
Elkhorn corals (Acropora palmata) once dominated the reefs of the Florida Keys and the Caribbean. Now they are near extinction in much of the region. Dr. Andrea Grottoli in the School of Earth Sciences at OSU and her collaborator Dr. Ilsa Kuffner at the United States Geological Survey in St Petersburg, FL are collaborating on a project to determine why transplanted Elkhorn corals seem to be doing better in the Dry Tortugas than in any other part of the Florida Keys reef tract. Answers from this study could provide mechanisms for enhancing the restoration success of this vital coral species. One hypothesis has to do with variation in temperature and supply of zooplankton (a favorite food for corals).
This past week (25 Oct - 2 Nov), Dr. Grottoli along with her graduate student Ann Marie Hulver and her postdoc Dr. Leila Chapron drove to the Florida Keys (2,600 miles in a minivan loaded with gear) to join Dr. Kuffner's team for some fieldwork that had been delayed since April due to COVID travel restrictions. While only half of the sites could be sampled, they were able to collect coral, seawater, and plankton samples at three sites in the main Florida Keys. The work was performed under an approved scientific permit with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
The work is challenging because the Grottoli-Kuffner teams are interested in corals on the outer reefs and the remote reefs of the Dry Tortugas where surge and wind conditions can be challenging. High winds and a new hurricane brewing in the Gulf of Mexico forced them to abort plans to sample corals at the Dry Tortugas this week. That work has been rescheduled for December 2020 -- provided a good weather window is available.