Coral Project Quseir 2010 - 2.-30.9. 2010

V o l u n t e e r s_w a n t e d!

Project prerequisites
PADI Open Water Diver (or similar) with at least 15 dives, biology student (or courses in basic biology). Certain measures (small projects) may require the PADI Advanced Open Water Course (or similar). Knowledge of marine biology is an advantage.

Participants
Maximum number of participants for the project is 12.

Price
Package includes:  40 dives, airport transfers,  4 weeks accommodation, training, - 750* €. *Price is excluding diving equipment! You can rent full dive equipment (except dive computer) for 5 € per dive.

Project description
You will learn to collect data underwater using different survey techniques, analyse and interpret the data. The project will run for four weeks, during which presentations, training, fieldwork in the following topics will deal with:

• Coral bleaching (monitoring, coral watch, survey techniques)
• Coral diseases (id techniques, built up a local catalogue)
• Coral diversity (scleractinian coral groups, id techniques)
• Coral damages (anthropogenic threats, natural coral feeders and damage)

Application procedure
Please send a short e-mail with CV topascal.kriwy(at)redsea-ec.org. We will send you confirmation and invoice as soon as possible.

Biodiversity and Biogeography of Red Sea Scleractinians

Generally most scleractinian species show a certain variation, environmental and regional, which made the identification quite difficult. Veron (2000) ascribes to this fact the certainty with which a local taxonomist is able to identify a particular coral species decreases gradually with distance from the region he works. The difficulty of assessing the extent of hybridisation between coral species and the influence of a possible reticulate evolution (hypothesis) are further obstacles to coral identification. The references regarding distribution and species number for the Red Sea in the literature (Sheppard & Sheppard 1991, Wallace 1999, Veron 2000) differ to some extent, especially in the genus Acropora. Wallace (1999) gives 43 species compared to 52 of Veron (2000). Veron (2000) excludes 5 of the species given by Wallace (1999) from the Red Sea and in addition assesses 6 more as uncertain. In return he gives species unidentified by Wallace (1999) Acropora anthocercis). In addition, 15 species are stated as uncertain for the Red Sea by Veron (2000).