Great Barrier Reef Foundation workshop

Group photo of workshop participantsIn early March, Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey, and Jane Thomas traveled to Townsville, Australia for the third Great Barrier Reef Climate Change Resilience Index workshop. IAN was tasked with facilitating a workshop to coordinate a team of investigators to develop a climate change resilience index from a series of indicators. Resilience indicators that are being developed include calcification by crustose coralline algae, stress biomarkers in corals, habitat monitoring by automated image analysis, 3D reefscape mapping, and seagrass productivity and temperature sensitivity. This project is part of a joint project of UMCES and Charles Darwin University. We will be producing an 8-page newsletter that describes the development of indicators to measure the resilience of coral reef ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef.