Glovers Reef Marine Research Station -- A Resource for Greater Understanding of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System

Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx NY

Investigators

Abstract

A grant has been awarded to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) under the direction of Dr. Archie Carr III for partial support to enhance the Station's ability to serve as a base for research and higher education learning in the Caribbean. Glovers Reef Marine Research Station is located approximately 45 km off the coast of Belize and offers the scientific community an opportunity to conduct high quality, replicable research at one of the Caribbean's most complex and important coral reef systems. As currently configured, the Station can house only eight researchers. With this limited capacity, the Station could not host field courses and could not accommodate simultaneous visits by multiple-investigator projects. Support of the NSF's Field Stations and Marine Laboratories Program will enable the WCS to make the Station available to a larger number of researchers through a modest expansion of the station's scientific capacity and will support the wider dissemination of results of that research through improved data management. WCS has already expanded the capacity of the Station from eight to 16 researchers. Additional facilities improvement that will be supported by the FSML program include construction of a small classroom/meeting room that can be used for field course activities. WCS will also use support of the FSML program to expand the existing dry laboratory to accommodate a wet laboratory. Finally, WCS will develop a spatially explicit web-based database to record metadata on ongoing and completed research activities conducted at the Station. This database will allow researchers planning future courses and investigations at the Station to understand what work has already been done and where it has been done in and around Glovers Reef Atoll. Tropical marine research stations are outposts for the collection of basic scientific information that increasingly has relevance to global discussions of climate change, depletion of wild fish stocks, and ecosystem changes in the marine environment. Research conducted at the Station is helping to provide scientific insights into a set of questions including why reefs of the Caribbean have experienced a shift to algal dominance over the last decade and what steps might be taken to promote the recovery of coral dominance; to what extent fish larvae are dispersed across the Mesoamerican Reef system and what mechanisms govern that dispersal; how reserves can be designed to maximize benefits to both fishermen and fish populations; and how various fish and invertebrate populations respond quantitatively to various management measures. The answers to these questions help inform management of reef systems in the Caribbean and around the world. Furthermore, the Station and its "natural laboratory" of Glovers Reef Atoll serve as a dynamic, unique marine classroom that can give high school, university, graduate, and post doctoral level students an opportunity to understand the functioning of marine ecosystems. Support of the FSML Program will increase the number of students and scientific researchers who can use these facilities and the results of research conducted at Glovers Reef Marine Research Station.