Ocean Resources

The coral microbial ecology group has an active research program identifying and characterizing the microbial associates of both tropical and cold-water (deep-sea) corals and their surrounding habitat. Current projects focus on coral disease dynamics, bacterial diversity, and using metagenomics to elucidate the functional roles of coral microbes.

The specific objectives of this project are to identify and describe the processes that are important in determining rates of coral-reef construction. How quickly the skeletons of calcifying organisms accumulate to form massive barrier-reef structure is determined by processes of both construction (how fast organisms grow and reproduce) and destruction (how fast reefs break down by mechanical...

The Florida Coastal Mapping Program (FCMaP) is an initiative between Federal and Florida State agencies and institutions to coordinate and facilitate the collection and accessibility of Florida coastal seafloor data in order to fill priority areas and gaps.

This project focused on developing algorithms for quantifying benthic habitat complexity from images, modeling the structural complexity of the seafloor, and using fluorescence signatures to classify coral reef habitats.