News

The Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) continues its popular Reef Lecture Series with an upcoming online presentation: ‘Two decades of resilience on the reefs of Little Cayman’ which will be hosted by recently appointed Director of Research, Dr. Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley.

Since 1999, researchers at CCMI have been monitoring the health of the coral reefs around Little Cayman Island by surveying various aspects of the community on an annual basis. Long-term monitoring studies such as this enable assessment of the resilience of the reef to changing conditions over time and also give a better understanding of the true impact of global climate change. Following the standardized protocol of the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA), these surveys document patterns of local change over the last two decades and enable regional comparisons through the Healthy Reef Framework developed for evaluating the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef.

During this lunchtime lecture, Dr Goodbody-Gringley will share findings about the change over time for coral cover, coral composition, algae, and fish density and biomass from CCMI’s 20 year data set of annual reef monitoring activity. She will take participants through the findings contained in the recently released technical report, discussing the results and what they tell us about the stability of the coral and fish populations on Little Cayman.

The Reef Lecture will be held online on Wednesday, 22 July, starting at 12 noon local time (UTC -5). The event will be an online webinar, and registration is required. Thanks to the support of Healthy Reefs sponsors, there is no cost to participate; however, donations to CCMI are appreciated and will support the institute’s work for coral reef resilience, as we continue to discover which corals are resilient and can adapt to changing climate.

Members of the public can register to participate: https://tinyurl.com/LittleCayman.