Moorea Coral Reef LTER in the News

The Wild Side: A Mutual Affair (New York Times, April 8, 2008)

I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite animals: the shrimp goby. These pretty little fish lead lives of enviable indolence. As their name suggests, they live with shrimp (often, a pair). The shrimp build and maintain a burrow. which the goby and shrimp live in together. Each shrimp works hard, shoveling sand out of the front entrance like a miniature bulldozer. As soon as it's delivered the rubble to a suitable distance, it shoots back into its burrow. read more...

MCR LTER PI Alice Alldredge wins prestigious G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award (January, 2008)

The G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award has been presented annually since 1982 to recognize excellence in any aspect of limnology or oceanography. The award is intended to symbolize the quality and innovations toward which the society strives and to remind its members of these goals. Dr. Alldredge was recognized as a scientist who had made considerable contributions to knowledge, and whose future work promised a continuing legacy of scientific excellence. She will receive her award at the annual ASLO (Advancing the Science of Limnology and Oceanograhy) meeting in June of 2008 in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

Sensors, Scientists and Streaming Data (December 4, 2007)

San Diego, CA, Santa Barbara, CA, Madison, WI USA; and Hsinchu, Taiwan, December 4, 2007 -- A wide-ranging collaboration of researchers will develop, improve and deploy tools to support globally-encompassing, grass-roots, community-based research networks studying lake and coral reef ecosystems. They will build cyber- and social infrastructures of sensors, scientists, streaming data and sharing, developing tools with ease of deployment, robustness and stability to enable easily accessed, networked, collaborative ecological science on an international scale. In the process, innovative research will be conducted. read more...

MCR LTER Participates in the third International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Technology (December 3-6, 2006)

MCR LTER Investigators Sally Holbrook, Russell Schmitt and Andrew Brooks attended the third meeting of the International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Technology held November 3-6, 2007 in Melbourne, Australia. The event, which was run under the umbrella of the ARC Research Network on Sensor Networks, focused on both theory and application of intelligent sensors and smart systems. Sally Holbrook gave a keynote talk addressing the ways that technology development can better meet the logistical and scientific needs of environmental scientists working in marine ecosystems.

Third MCR LTER All-Investigator Meeting a Success (November 6-7, 2007)

On November 6-7, 2007, the MCR LTER site held its third all-investigator meeting at UC Santa Barbara. MCR LTER Principal and Associate investigators, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students met to discuss results of monitoring and process studies and to plan upcoming research efforts. Highlights of the meeting included productive working group breakout sessions and invited talks by our guests from the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (NMMBA) in Taiwan, Dr. Tung-Yung Fan and his PhD student Pi-Jen Liu. see group picture...

Marine Biologists Edmunds and Carpenter Dive Into Coral Reef Study (November, 2007)

Peter Edmunds and Bob Carpenter are featured on the CSUN website! Keep reading for an excerpt from the article: The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) as joint recipients of a $4.6 million, six-year grant to establish a long-term project studying the coral reefs off French Polynesia, the first coral reef Long Term Ecological Research Site supported by the NSF. read more...

MCR LTER Undergraduates Win Best Poster Award at WSN (November, 2007)

MCR LTER undergraduates Jenn Gowan and Stephanie Horii were co-winners of the 2007 Best Student Poster award at the November 8-11 Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting in Ventura, California. Ms. Gowan was an undergraduate assistant for MCR LTER graduate student Gerick Bergsma during the summer of 2007. Ms. Horii and MCR LTER graduate student Tom Adam were the recipients of a 2007 Worster Award which helped to fund their research. read more...

Crabs Clean Up, National Geographic Kids Online (August, 2007)

Researchers have discovered that tiny crabs about a third of an inch (one centimeter) long take care of a huge job. They actually help keep coral reefs alive. And that's important, because more than nine million species depend on coral reefs around the world for food and shelter. read more...

MCR LTER participates in the GLEON 4 Meeting at the Lammi Biological Field Station, Finland (March 2-5, 2007)

MCR LTER Investigator Sally Holbrook attended the fourth meeting of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) held March 2-5, 2007 at the Lammi Biological Field Station, Finland. Holbrook represented GLEON’s partner in grass-roots efforts to build international environmental sensor networks, the Coral Reef Environmental Observatory Network (CREON; www.coralreefeon.org). For a photo of meeting participants, click here. For more information on the meeting, go to http://gleon.org.

Moorea Coral Reef LTER Sends Delegation to Taiwan (March 1-10, 2007)

Dr. Peter Edmunds (co-PI for MCR-LTER), Gerick Bergmsa, Nichole Price, and Hollie Putnam participated in a collaborative exchange between the MCR LTER and the Taiwan ILTER at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (NMMBA) (http://eng.nmmba.gov.tw/) in the Kenting National Park early this March. Their host, Dr. Tung-Yung Fan, an Associate Research Fellow at NBBMA, timed their arrival with the monthly spawning of several species of cultivated, brooding corals so that we could use the harvested larvae in several preliminary experiments examining the behavior and physiology of settling corals. Hollie Putnam will be returning to southern Taiwan this summer as a participant in the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) (http://www.nsf.gov/eapsi) administered by NSF to work with Dr. Fan. To see a group picture, click here or to view the newspaper article, click here...

MCR LTER Investigators Participate in Joint Symposium with CRIOBE Scientists (March 2-4, 2007)

Representatives from the MCR LTER and CRIOBE met over the weekend to discuss potential collaborations. Participants included Serge Planes, Rene Galzin, Yannick Chancerelle and Thierry Lison de Loma from CRIOBE, Neil Davies from Gump Research Station and Giacomo Bernardi, Bob Carpenter, Peter Edmunds, Andy Brooks, Russ Schmitt and Sally Holbrook from the MCR LTER. see picture ...

MCR LTER Participates in an AIMS Workshop Addressing the Adoption of Sensor Networks by Coastal Managers (December 5, 2006)

Research priorities and water quality programs stress the need for information and systematic monitoring methods to support policy and management strategies in improving capability of detect coral bleaching conditions and minimising the continuous decline in GBR water quality. Collecting real-time data at appropriate temporal and spatial scales is critical to understanding complex marine processes. However, scientific data provided by new technologies often does not fit the needs or interest of managers and decision makers or they are not presented in a way that can be used in a management framework. Andrew Brooks represented the MCR LTER at a recent workshop is designed to address the adaptive deployment of sensor networks in the Great Barrier Reef coast and the delivery of real-time spatial information. To read more, click here...

MCR LTER Site Holds its Second All-Investigator Meeting at UC Santa Barbara (November, 2006)

On November 14-15, 2006, the MCR LTER site held a two day investigator meeting. MCR LTER Principal and Associate investigators, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students met to discuss results of monitoring and process studies and to plan upcoming research efforts. Highlights of the meeting included research presentations by graduate students and postdocs. To see the group picture, click here...

Tiny 'Housekeeper' Crabs Help Prevent Coral Death in the South Pacific (UCSB Press Release, October 23, 2006)

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) - Tiny crabs that live in South Pacific coral help to prevent the coral from dying by providing regular cleaning "services" that may be critical to the life of coral reefs around the world, according to scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara. read more...

MCR LTER Investigators Participate in the Third GLEON and CREON Joint Workshop (October 3-4, 2006)

The Coral Reef Environmental Observatory Network (CREON) is a collaborating association of scientists and engineers from around the world that is striving to design and build marine sensor networks. It collaborates closely with efforts of an international group of lake scientists (GLEON). Five MCR LTER Investigators (see photo) attended the third GLEON and CLEON joint workshop held at the National Center for High Performance Computing in Hsinchu, Taiwan. read more...

MCR LTER Investigators Participate in Joint Symposium with Kenting Coral Reef ILTER Scientists (October 2, 2006)

A joint symposium between the MCR LTER and Kenting Coral Reef ILTER sites was held at the National Chung Hsing University (N.C.H.U.) in Taichung, Taiwan . The symposium was sponsored by the Environmental Restoration and Disaster Reduction Research Center and the Department of Life Sciences at N.C.H.U., the Research Center for Biodiversity, Academia Sinica and the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. To read the program, click here or to view the pictures, click here...

The Next 25 Years of LTER: Contributions to Understanding Ecological Change (September 20-24, 2006)

A group of 13 MCR LTER investigators attended the 2006 LTER All Scientists Meeting in Estes Park, Colorado on September 20-24th, 2006. Results of MCR research were presented in 18 posters during the meeting. To see the MCR LTER site poster, click here. To read more about the meeting, click here...

Ecological Change, Climate Variation Addressed at International Conference (September 20, 2006)

A research project led by MCR LTER Postdoctoral Fellow Hannah Stewart was featured in a news release by the National Science Foundation that highlighted exciting research being conducted at LTER sites. Stewart's research explores how crabs that live in association with branching corals aid in their survival by clearing damaging sediments. read more...

MCR LTER Brochure Available as PDF (September, 2006)

How and why do coral reef ecosystems change over time? What determines their response to and recovery from disturbance? Check out the Moorea Coral Reef LTER brochure to find out. read more...

Science on the Solstice (NATURE, Vol. 441, 29 June, 2006)

Every day, all over the planet and beyond it, scientists try to make sense of the world in which they live. In this article, Nature presents a composite picture of just one day - 21 June 2006, the Northern Summer Solstice. To read the whole article (Moorea LTER included on the sixth page!), click here...

The Ocean Channel Documents LTER in Moorea, French Polynesia (Ocean Channel Website, June, 2006)

The state of the global ocean is changing, and not for the better. Global warming, rising carbon dioxide levels, over fishing, pollution, coastal development and coastal wetland depletion are but a few of the things threatening the ocean's fragile ecosystem. Coral bleaching, declining fish populations, rising ocean temperatures and water levels, melting arctic ice and an increased numbers of hurricanes and typhoons are some of the evidence of change. Scientists are scrambling to identify specific cause and effect relationships to these and other ocean issues. This evidence of change--attributed to definitive catalysts and going beyond the startling trends--is seen by many as more than enough cause for concern. read more...

Saving the World's Coral Reefs (Profiles in Research, 2005)

Ten miles west of Tahiti's coast is Moorea, a tranquil island where white sand beaches edge a turquoise ocean and deep lagoons, and forests climb slopes of volcanic mountains. But the exotic features that preoccupy marine ecologists Russell Schmitt and Sally Holbrook are the small island's relatively undisturbed coral reefs, built by means of a symbiotic relationship between colonies of tiny marine animals and single-celled photosynthetic algae. read more...

WUWNET06: The First ACM International Workshop on Underwater Networks (September 29, 2006)

The goal of the proposed workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners in areas relevant to underwater networks. Thus, many layers of the “stack” from the physical layer to the application layer will be represented. The objective is to serve as a forum for presenting state-of-the-art research, exchanging ideas and experiences, and facilitating interaction and collaboration. The workshop will span one day, including presentations of technical papers, tutorial papers, a panel session and a poster/demo session. Submissions for regular technical papers and poster/demo extended abstracts should describe original research, not published or currently under review for other workshops, conferences, or journals. http://wuwnet.engr.uconn.edu

MCR LTER Site to Participate in the Coral Reef Environmental Observatory Network (CREON) (January, 2006)

The Coral Reef Environmental Observatory Network (CREON) is a collaborating association of scientists and engineers from around the world that is striving to design and build marine sensor networks. Sensor networks on land are becoming common as new technology enables environmental parameters to be observed in real time and often in several dimensions. Extending this to the marine environment poses many challenges such as fouling and data transmission. The MCR LTER is participating in the initial efforts of the CREON group to share knowledge among research groups and to deploy sensor networks in several locations, including Moorea, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the Kenting Coral Reef ILTER Site in Taiwan. MCR LTER scientists will participate in a CREON workshop in Townsville, Australia, in March 2006. MCR LTER Co-Principal Investigator Sally Holbrook is on the organizing committee for the workshop. To read more about CREON, go to the following address: www.coralreefeon.org.

MCR LTER Site Holds All-Investigator Meeting at UC Santa Barbara (November, 2005)

On November 28-29, 2005, the MCR LTER site held a two day investigator meeting. A total of 35 Principal and Associate investigators, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students met to discuss results of monitoring and process studies and to plan upcoming research efforts. Highlights of the meeting included research presentations by six graduate students and two postdocs. view pictures…

UC Santa Barbara Engineers Collaborate With MCR LTER Investigators to Develop Technology for Wireless Underwater Transmission of Data (August, 2005)

A group of engineers from UC Santa Barbara including Professors Ron Iltis, Hua Lee and Ryan Kastner, is working with a team of investigators from the MCR LTER to develop technology for wireless underwater transmission of data from moored oceanographic instruments. The involves development of an Aqua Modem, which is an underwater acoustic communication device being designed and built by a consortium of UC Santa Barbara and Sonatech, Inc. The goal of the Aqua Modem is to provide a 133 bps data rate with a range of 300 meters. The modem will be incorporated into an Aquanode, which serves to provide a wireless underwater platform for remote eco-sensing. The UC Santa Barbara engineering team is maintaining an Aquanode web site at the following address: http://aquanode.ece.ucsb.edu/Modem/.

Warm Tahitian Welcome to LTER PIs (Les Nouvelles, July, 2005)

Oscar Temaru, President of French Polynesia, welcomes Sally Holbrook and Russ Schmitt, PIs of the Moorea Coral Reef LTER, to a Texas-style barbeque he hosted at the Presidential Palace in Papeete on July 4th, 2005 (click here to see a photo and here to see the invitation). The occasion was to celebrate both the U.S. Independence Day and the inaugural non-stop flight of Air Tahiti Nui between Tahiti and New York. U.S. citizens working in French Polynesia were treated to an evening of traditional Tahitian dancing and singing in the beautiful gardens of the Presidential Palace. Both President Temaru and Christopher Kosely, United States Consul, gave welcoming addresses. Lead PI Russ Schmitt commented, "It was truly a great honor for us, as representatives of the Moorea Coral Reef LTER, to be included in this celebration and to be so warmly welcomed." read more...

Moorea Roundtable (May 5-6, 2005)

Seven MCR LTER investigators participated in a two-day scientific roundtable meeting in Moorea on May 5-6, 2005. The event was hosted jointly by the Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l'Environnement (CRIOBE) and the UC Berkeley Gump Research Station, and was designed to foster scientific interactions and cooperation among MCR LTER investigators, CRIOBE scientists and representatives and scientists from the Territorial Government and other French agencies. Research talks were given at CRIOBE by MCR LTER and CRIOBE scientists, followed by presentations by individuals representing government agencies and several marine research, monitoring and conservation programs active in French Polynesia. There were roundtable discussions on topics of mutual interest such as data sharing, training and capacity building, and development of funding sources, as well as tours of Gump Research Station’s new laboratory facilities and developing Atitia Center for community outreach and education. view pictures...

Building Capacity and Linking Infrastructure in the Lake and Coral Reef Scientific Communities (Workshop, March, 2005)

The Moorea Coral Reef LTER is participating in an international effort to develop a scalable coral reef sensor network. MCR LTER scientists have attended two workshops to identify the science questions and research opportunities afforded by a global network, the core variables for sensor measurement, and a five-year plan for implementation of a network. The report of the Coral Reef Working Group for the workshop "Building Capacity and Linking Infrastructure in the Lake and Coral Reef Scientific Communities," held at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in March, 2005 describes the progress to date. For more information on the efforts to form scalable sensor networks, go to www.lakemetabolism.org. Participating LTER and ILTER sites include MCR LTER, the North Temperate Lakes (NTL) LTER, the Taiwan Ecological Research Network (TERN), and ILTER sites that include Kenting Coral Reef and Yuan Yuang Lake. read more...

The UV Lagoon: Where Nanotech Meets Biology... (Convergence, Winter 2005, One)

Most people who have some acquaintance with new science hear "nanotechnology" and probably think small - really small. That's understandable, since nanotech is the science of manipulating matter at the atomic or molecular level, where distance is measured in billionths of a meter. It would seem, too, that the experimental subjects in this realm are too miniscule to see, hear or feel. read more...

Scientists at Sea: Northridge Biologists Helping Endangered Coral Reefs With $4.6 Million Grant (NORTHRIDGE, Winter 2004, No. 40)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected Cal State Northridge and UC Santa Barbara as the joint recipients of an unprecedented $4.6 million, six-year grant to establish a long-term project studying the coral reefs of French Polynesia, near Tahiti, an effort expected to add volumes to scientific understanding of ominous changes in global coral reef communities. read more...

LTER Grows: NSF Awards $10 Million to Ocean Sites for Long-Term Ecological Research (The Network Newsletter Vol. 17 No.2 Fall 2004)

Coral reefs and coastal upwelling ecosystems are the foci of two new LTER sites awarded funding this summer by the National Science Foundation (NSF). With the addition of the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) and the Moorea Coral Reef (MCR) LTER sites, there are now 26 NSF-funded sites in the LTER network. Henry Gholz, director of NSF’s LTER program, noted that the two sites significantly augmented the LTER network, which hitherto included only one marine site—Palmer in the Antarctic. The awards ensure that high biodiversity and productivity ecosystems in most of the world’s major biomes, both on land and in the oceans, are represented. The two newest sites will receive approximately $820,000 for the next six years, for a total of about $5 million each. The following two articles introduce the two newest members of the LTER Network. read more...

NSF Awards $10 Million in Grants to Ocean Sites for Long-Term Ecological Research (NSF Press Release 04-096, July 26, 2004)

ARLINGTON, Va. - Coral reefs and coastal upwelling ecosystems are the subject of two new Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites awarded funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF). With the addition of the Moorea Coral Reef LTER Site and the California Current Ecosystem LTER Site, there are now 26 NSF-funded sites in the LTER network. The two newest sites will receive approximately $820,000 for the next six years, for a total of about $5 million each. read more...

For questions, please contact: brooks@msi.ucsb.edu