Coral Project Dahab 2012 - First report

Now, we’re here for two weeks already – time is running so fast =). In the first weeks, we had the opportunity to get acquainted with Dahab above and below the water surface. Nina, the supervisor of the project, has already introduced us into the world of corals, the damages and their diseases.  In a final test we could demonstrate our newly acquired knowledge – and, fortunately, we all passed the test. Some days ago, we could also welcome a new diver (PADI-OWD) and biology student in the diving community. So, we are now able to start our project with a team of four divers and one volunteer working mainly in the office. During the dives, we had already the opportunity to get familiar with Coral Damage and Disease-Analysis. The underwater world here is impressive. Many fishes, beautiful corals and other lower animals (invertebrates) as well as the seasonal related limited number of divers and tourists makes the diving here to an extraordinary experience. Unfortunately, we observed a lot of damage caused by inexperienced snorkelers and chaotic or careless divers. With special survey-techniques and methods, we will check and record the momentary situation of the coral reefs in the next weeks. Furthermore, a highlight will be the analysis of the Reef by high-tech fluorescence during night dives together with Prof. Grunz which will possibly allow the fast determination of the health status of reefs in addition to the Damage/Disease survey during daytime in the future. Conclusion: the theory part is finished – let’s start diving!

Coral Project Dahab 14.7.-11.8.2011 – Bulletin 2

The good thing about the wind in Egypt is the fact, that it´s easier to stand the heat. You can breathe normally again, sleep the whole night and you´re not sweating like hell when you´re in the sun.
The bad thing about the Wind in Dahab is the fact that we are not able to work properly.
When we, motivated as we are, trying to get into the water in the morning, the waves are just trying to keep us, with all their force out.
At a normal survey dive, you try to have a good buoyancy to come as close as possible to the corals. Due to the weather conditions we have now, we are happy when we don´t get seasick on 5m and find the corals where we stopped for writing at 13m. However, now we just try to do what´s possible, that means doing the survey at 15m. Today we also started with an UW cleanup  in the bay, cause that’s maybe the best thing we can do at the moment. Nina is checking the “Windguru” every day, but her face also gets unhappy every day, as it says wind for the rest of the week. So we all just hope that Egyptian weather forecasts as bad as European ones, so we can start with the surveys again. So just at the moment we a polishing every fish in the bay until we are able to see our self in his scales-

Your´s, some cleaning volunteers from the border of the red sea ;)

Coral Project Dahab 14.7.-11.8.2011 – Week 1

Hi everybody at home. I hope you enjoy your time sitting in front of your PC, starring at the cloudy, cold weather outside. Actually we have about 40 degrees and sunshine every day, which is also hard to handle when you´re used to middle European weather conditions. It´s now two weeks, since we started the Coral Project 2011. We are a mixed group of six Volunteers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Greece. We used the first days in Dahab practice our buoyancy, so we can dive the “scientist style”. That means you´re hanging around, most of the time head down, on a strap that’s 20m long and is placed on a coral reef, trying to get data, while not destroying every coral around you. That worked quite well after three days, so we went on to get information about the corals (Coral Bleaching, diseases and Coral ID). Well, we didn´t do that the whole day as we also went diving to practice under water what seemed quite difficult theoretically. However, under water it´s a lot easier to find out which disease the coral has. So, after we did a test to see if we are ready for a real survey, we started collecting the data.
It´s quite interesting to learn about how a coral reef works, which animals are depending on it and which impact mankind has on this ecosystem.

So that’s it for now, we´ll try to update you now more often about what we are doing here.
Best wishes from Dahab ;)

Markus Dengg

Coral Project Quseir 2010 – Week 1
On the 3rd of September, everything was finally ready to roll. For about two weeks Quseir Field station had become busier and busier by the day, with a steady dribble of volunteers arriving in small groups or one by one. It was by no means a boring time and everybody used it to get accustomed to the gear, the dive location (Utopia Bay), the fishes, corals, all the other critters and obviously, the social side of things. Highlights included Niels’ Farewell Party on our spacious rooftop, where our Egyptian friends constituted the majority of guests, snorkelling with Dolphins at the Radisson Jetty and the boat trip to Sharm el Fugani on Simone’s Birthday. Also we used the time to assist Stephi, who is doing a sea urchin census at the Radisson Reef crest for her B.Sc. Thesis and Romana, who is studying bleaching and coral diseases and the temporal dynamics thereof.

With the arrival of Kim on the 2nd of September the group of 13 volunteers was complete and the theoretical training could begin. Pascal was assisted by Nina, who had come from Dahab to assist in the initial planning of the project, and Hendrik, our dive master. The first day was filled with presentations about coral reefs and how to IC corals, while the next morning the topic shifted towards coral diseases. Methodology was introduced; especially the LIT Survey (English et al 1997) and hand signals for communication under water were practiced both dry and wet in some test dives. Gear was piled up in the living room, checked and packed again and again, so everybody knows where everything belongs. After three days that were divided between theory, dry practice and test dives, a first practice dive, using the complete methodology was conducted – and attracted an unlikely visitor. A curious Dolphin was quite successful in distracting most of the team – only two people kept rolling out the transect lines, resisting all efforts of their colleagues to direct their attention to the special guest. In the following days the methods were refined slightly and more practice dives were scheduled. An interesting and challenging addition to our repertoire is a tetra pod for taking 1m² photo plots with a fixed distance to the camera. With about 1,7m height the towing of this construction and its handling underwater requires some good buoyancy skills. The end of the week – and Ramadan – was celebrated properly with a trip to Abu Dabab on Thursday Evening and we look forward to applying our newly won knowledge to do the first real surveys starting Saturday.

Text: Daniel & Sven

Pictures: Daniel

Coral Project Quseir 2010 – Week 2 & 3

After a week of training in the office, underwater and changing the methods we were finally able to collect data. Sometimes the methods and the organisation of the dives had to be adapted to strong currents and tides, coupled with unusually “cold” weather. We even had rain for a couple of minutes. But all in all everyone became more and more familiar with working underwater and the project could proceed. We even had time to do some underwater clean ups in Utopia Bay.
End of last week a 2 day trip to Wadi El Gemal National Park was planned and fully enjoyed by everyone. A 3 hour walking tour through the desert of the National Park made the early waking up at 3:30 worth it. After the hot experience, a Mangrove Lagoon was the perfect refreshment though the stinging upside-down-jellyfish weren´t enjoyed by everyone!! For lunchtime we enjoyed a friendly welcome in a Bedouin village where we were spoiled with spicy coffee, sand-baked bread and experienced some Bedouin traditions. We spent the night at a nice laid-back camp, where we also had a fun-dive the next day.
Starting to work with new enthusiasm the next week, we now started to complete the gaps in our data and are already looking forward to the analysis.

Text: Alice + Romana
Photos: Alice + Daniel

Short outline of the Coral Projects:

Coral Diversity and Distribution Project
Different sites of the reef provide diverse environmental factors and require different adaptations of coral species (Loya 1972). One goal is to characterise chosen reefs and provide an overview of coral species, their abundance, density and distribution in different zones at the fringing reefs in the region of El Quseir. This project focuses on the species, the morphology and the size (and age) of coral colonies and tries to correlate these characteristics with their locations. Furthermore, the density of species in different locations is of major interest.

Monitoring of Abundance and Coral Health:
Monitoring of the corals concerning their abundance in various zones, bleaching and disease or other damage and algal overgrowth is a long term activity, which will provide information on possible seasonal changes in the reef or changes due to other (climatic or anthropogenic) impacts.

Coral Sexual Reproduction Project:
Study on the sexual reproduction biology of the corals will be conducted. A study recording the spawning events is planed, as up to now these data is rare for the Red Sea (Shlesinger et al. 1998, Hanafy et al. 2010).
Precisely synchronized spawning allows the stationary animals to mix genetically and to disperse offspring over great distances. It is important that synchronic spawning events are recorded and a schedule for these events is developed in order to facilitate effective management. In particular, human disturbances should be prohibited during spawning seasons, ensuring that the seasonal reproduction and reef replenishment is not disturbed.

Coral Recruitment Project:
Recruitment is the measure of the number of young individuals entering the adult population and it is an essential factor in cases of damage or decrease of the reef due to climatic or anthropogenic disturbances. The study of the natural rates of coral recruitment helps to better understand the potential of repopulation in the reef. Documentation of recruitment in the reef is important for estimating the recovery rate of a reef (Hughes et al. 1999, Loch et al. 2004).
Long term study will be conducted in order to collect data on the recruitment patterns in the Red Sea throughout the year. Quantitative analysis and species specific analysis of young coral recruits are possible here (Babock et al. 2003).

Defined environmental abiotic parameters will be seasonally recorded accompanying the data of the above sketched studies to allow a correlation of such abiotic data sets with the observed results.

Collected data is valuable in terms of biological interest. Furthermore, the collected data will provide a foundation for the design of protective and recovery measures that will enable reef preservations for appropriate and long-term future use.