REEF Fest is less than two months away! Please join us for a four-day celebration of marine conservation that includes snorkel and dive charters, ocean-themed seminars, and social gatherings with friends. Diving and snorkeling trips are offered on the mornings of Friday, Sept 21 and Saturday, Sept. 22. Space is limited, so please register as soon as possible. There is no need to call a dive shop to participate in REEF Fest diving or snorkel trips. Instead, visit the REEF Fest Diving webpage to register online.
REEF’s 2018 Lionfish Derby Series presented by Whole Foods Market® is in full swing, and we are excited to share that so far, derby participants have already removed more than 1,770 lionfish from Florida's coastal waters this year! Thank you to everyone who has participated in this effort to combat invasive species. With the Palm Beach Derby happening this weekend at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, we will add even more lionfish to the current total.
Smaller and less developed than Grand Cayman, the sister islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are the perfect spots to do plenty of diving. The first five days will be spent diving at Cayman Brac Beach Resort, followed by another five days diving Little Cayman's famous walls and reefs. Both resorts are well known for providing a high level of service.
This Fishinar session covers the following invertebrates, as well as an introduction to the new Marine Life of the North Atlantic app.
- Atlantic Rock Crab
- Blue Crab
- Atlantic Horseshoe Crab
- Anemone Sea Spider
- Northern Cerianthid
- Northern Red Anemone
- Finger Sponge
- Eelgrass
- Sea Vase
- Invasive Didemnum Tunicate
- Wrinkled Whelk
- Orange-footed Cucumber
- Northern Sea Star
To commemorate 25 years of REEF’s Volunteer Fish Survey Project, a group of volunteer citizen scientist divers joined REEF staff and interns, along with co-founder Paul Humann, for a special 25th anniversary Field Survey Trip in Key Largo, Florida, last month. Key Largo is home to REEF Headquarters and was also the location for the very first REEF Field Survey Trip, held in July 1993. The attendees on the 2018 trip surveyed the same sites visited by participants on the 1993 Field Survey, to observe how fish populations have changed over past 25 years.
REEF's Volunteer Fish Survey Project dataset was one of 73 fish and invertebrate monitoring programs that were systematically cataloged and evaluated as part of a mulit-year study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) RESTORE Act Science Program. The effort was led by Arnaud Gruss from the University of Miami, and involved dozens of collaborators, including REEF's Director of Science, Christy Pattengill-Semmens.
Statistical habitat models, such as generalized linear models (GLMs) and generalized additive models (GAMs), are key tools for assisting Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management (EBFM) efforts. These models can be used to map species distributions and assist in marine protected area (MPA) planning.