Adventure Scientists’ Ground Truth Coral Bleaching project is an ongoing reef monitoring effort partnered with Dr. Andrea Rivera-Sosa of the Coral Reef Alliance and the Allen Coral Atlas (ACA). The ACA is a groundbreaking satellite monitoring technology that tracks coral bleaching worldwide. The first of its kind, ACA has the potential to help create marine reserves, direct artificial reef creation, or assist in the study of coral that is resistant to warming oceans. Its accuracy, however, must be confirmed by divers in the field. This is where Adventure Scientists comes in. An important part of our mission is to “facilitate data collection in the field while having a conservation focused impact on marine biodiversity.” Confirming the accuracy of ACA and coral bleaching locations strongly aligns with our goals.
Engagement in this effort has already led to exceptional partnerships between Adventure Scientists and coral conservation organizations, dive clubs, and individual divers across the globe – in Central America, Indonesia, and Baja California. The results of these collaborations are data from dozens of reef transects, which provide valuable insight into the condition of reefs on an international scale. One of these partners, Roatan Marine Park (RMP), is a community-based non-profit organization active in Honduras’s Bay Island National Marine Park (BINMP), which protects 650,000 hectares of Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. Their indispensable work includes patrolling and enforcing environmental legislation in the park, designing and implementing marine infrastructure projects, educating the public, and performing research and monitoring on the reef. Our partnership resulted in sixteen transects on four dive sites: Mandy’s eel garden (Figure 1), Dara’s Dream, Diane’s Dream and Overheat. The images reveal a high percentage of bleaching on the majority of stony corals. Despite this, the reef still supports a rich diversity of sea life including the Caribbean’s iconic tube sponges and fish species such as the Royal Gramma.
