REEF Fishinars are fun, live, interactive webinars, open to anyone who wants to learn about ocean life. Our upcoming schedule includes a four-part beginner's course for the Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) survey region, which includes Florida, the Caribbean, and The Bahamas. This series will cover the 60 most common fish species in this region and feature plenty of reviews and quizzes. This series will be an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in getting started as a surveyor, as well as provide a great review for advanced TWA surveyors.
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Are you an experienced REEF surveyor in the Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA)? If so, you might want to check out our brand new underwater survey paper featuring an extended list of species. The double-sided list fits on the regular yellow slate. The longer list of species means less write-in species and more efficient data entry. When entering your data, just select the longer list in the "Species View" field at the top of the data entry field. You can find the new paper in REEF's online store here - http://www.reef.org/node/433.
We are proud to announce that on July 1st 2017, the number of REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project surveys conducted by volunteers in the Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) region topped 150,000! The 150k surveys have been conducted by 11,123 volunteers at 8,837 sites in the TWA region (which includes the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Gulf of Mexico). The first surveys in the TWA were conducted 24 years ago in Key Largo.
Attention REEF surveyors: keep an eye out for the non-native Regal Demoiselle while surveying in the Tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) region. The Regal Demoiselle, Neopomacentrus cyanomos, is a damselfish native to a wide area of the Indo-Pacific and Red Sea. First reported as an exotic species in the Gulf of Mexico in 2016, recent reports show that the Regal Demoiselle has expanded its non-native range to southeast Florida.
Welcome to the Citizen Science Corner, a new feature highlighting those who recently reached a milestone in our Volunteer Fish Survey Project. Each quarter, we'll feature our surveyors' achievements from the past several months.
Experience Level Advancements
As a REEF member, you can access a complete list of all fish species found in any of REEF's ten survey regions. Each list shows both the common name used in REEF database, as well as the scientific name for all species in a given region. This is helpful in areas where common names are not standardized. To find the common name used in the REEF database, simply search for a species using the scientific name, and you'll be able to see the common name used in the REEF database.
REEF's online programs are free and open to everyone! Here's what is coming up over the next several weeks:
Fishy Hour: Fishy Game Night
Wednesday, April 7 at 8PM EDT
Join our Spring 2021 Marine Conservation Interns for a trivia-esque game night, featuring marine conservation and ocean facts plus Tropical Western Atlantic fish ID.
Register here.
Congratulations to the following REEF members who have recently moved up an Experience Level in our Volunteer Fish Survey Project! Volunteers have the opportunity to advance through 5 levels (Novice through Expert) within each of our survey project regions. Experience Levels are obtained by a combination of fish/invertebrate ID tests and numbers of submitted surveys. More about our experience levels can be found here.
Tropical regions are, in general, more diverse than ecosystems at higher temperate latitudes. A commonly held hypothesis is that the diverse predators in tropical regions cause predation to have a relatively stronger role in shaping communities. Data from the REEF Volunteer Fish Survey Project (VFSP) were used by Michele Repetto and colleagues from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to test for underlying differences in regional fish diversity that could contribute to variation in predation intensity and impact.
Welcome to the Citizen Science Corner, our quarterly feature to celebrate those who recently reached a milestone in our Volunteer Fish Survey Project. Here are achievements from July, August and September 2024.
Ultra Golden Hamlet Award