New discoveries in underwater Galapagos
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Tomorrow I’ll be attending the annual Galapagos Day talk at the Royal Geographical Society, hosted by the Galapagos Conservation Trust. I look forward to hearing what the guest speakers Sir David Attenborough, Andrew Marr and Felipe Cruz have to say about the status and future of the islands, including the underwater world.
And hopefully it won’t be all doom and gloom. Just last week, some good news shone through from Galapagos with the discovery of several new coral species including one that was thought to have been wiped out by the 1997-98 coral bleaching event.
Perhaps reefs are more resilient to rising temperatures and coral bleaching than we previously thought?
Bleaching coral inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve. David Jacobsen-Fried/Marine Photobank
Symbiotic algae living inside corals in the Galapagos are showing signs of thermal tolerance, thanks to studies since 1998 by Andrew Baker of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami.
The 3-year Darwin Initiative study brought researchers to the northern Wolf and Darwin Islands for the first time since the 1970s.
Team leader Terry Dawson, from Southampton University, has plans to return to Galapagos on the trail of a gaggle of magnificent pelagic species – including whale sharks and hammerhead sharks.
Could it be that these and other marine migrants are cruising an oceanic highway across the eastern reaches of the Pacific, between Cocos Island off Costa Rica through to the Las Perlas and Coiba Islands in Panama and Malpelo Island off Columbia? Dawson and his team hope to find out.
You can follow up on the latest results of the Galapagos coral reef surveys in the journal Galapagos Research.
in detail:
- Species new to science and the Galapagos include zooanthid species from the genera Hydrozoanthus, Parazoanthus, Antipathozoanthus. Also, the reef-building corals Pocillopora effusus, Pocillopora inflata, and Pavona chiriquiensis.
- A possible new gorgonian Pacifigorgia sp. was collected, together with a new reef-building coral, Leptoseris sp.
- Small colonies of Gardineroseris planulata were found at Wolf and Darwin islands, despite reports that it became extinct in the 1997-98 El Niño event.
Tomorrow I’ll be attending the annual Galapagos Day talk at the Royal Geographical Society, hosted by the Galapagos Conservation Trust. I look forward to hearing what the guest speakers Sir David Attenborough, Andrew Marr and Felipe Cruz have to say about the status and future of the islands, including the underwater world.
And hopefully it won’t be all doom and gloom. Just last week, some good news shone through from Galapagos with the discovery of several new coral species including one that was thought to have been wiped out by the 1997-98 coral bleaching event.
Perhaps reefs are more resilient to rising temperatures and coral bleaching than we previously thought?
Bleaching coral inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve. David Jacobsen-Fried/Marine Photobank
Symbiotic algae living inside corals in the Galapagos are showing signs of thermal tolerance, thanks to studies since 1998 by Andrew Baker of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami.
The 3-year Darwin Initiative study brought researchers to the northern Wolf and Darwin Islands for the first time since the 1970s.
Team leader Terry Dawson, from Southampton University, has plans to return to Galapagos on the trail of a gaggle of magnificent pelagic species – including whale sharks and hammerhead sharks.
Could it be that these and other marine migrants are cruising an oceanic highway across the eastern reaches of the Pacific, between Cocos Island off Costa Rica through to the Las Perlas and Coiba Islands in Panama and Malpelo Island off Columbia? Dawson and his team hope to find out.
You can follow up on the latest results of the Galapagos coral reef surveys in the journal Galapagos Research.
- Species new to science and the Galapagos include zooanthid species from the genera Hydrozoanthus, Parazoanthus, Antipathozoanthus. Also, the reef-building corals Pocillopora effusus, Pocillopora inflata, and Pavona chiriquiensis.
- A possible new gorgonian Pacifigorgia sp. was collected, together with a new reef-building coral, Leptoseris sp.
- Small colonies of Gardineroseris planulata were found at Wolf and Darwin islands, despite reports that it became extinct in the 1997-98 El Niño event.