Coral reef communities are complex, productive, and diverse tropical ecosystems. We know that coral reef communities are in decline in the Florida Keys, and at many other locations worldwide - but the causes and magnitude of decline remains unclear. Coral bleaching events are increasing in frequency and severity, and coral diseases are increasing in abundance distribution. Water quality concerns are paramount where coral reefs are found in close proximity to large populations centers. Over harvesting of fishes and selected invertebrates (e.g. conch and lobster) is a worldwide problem, even in the most remote locations. But all is not lost. There is increasing recognition that marine resources are in peril, and politicians, managers, and the public are beginning to demand that our ocean resources be protected. As a result, Marine Protected Areas are increasingly accepted as a way to conserve and even restore fisheries, and they are also an affective way to manage multiple user-groups that compete for access to similar locations.

During our Aquarius mission we will evaluate community structure and coral condition at Conch Reef, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary - home to the largest network of marine protected areas in the United States. The work complements our ongoing Keys-wide "rapid assessment" studies that include 80 additional reef sites from south of Miami to Key West, plus 60 more in the Dry Tortugas. However, none of these sites are nearly as deep as the reefs accessible from Aquarius. Deep coral reefs are important because they provide extensive habitat that supports important commercial and recreational fisheries, yet little is known about the condition of deep reefs compared to shallower waters. Further, deep reefs adjacent to Aquarius are especially important because they have been protected from fishing for several years, and it's expected that we will see more and larger fish as a result of protection against harvesting. Aquarius will provide the extended bottom time that we need to spend long hours on the reef conducting our studies.

We have two main objectives during our Aquarius mission. First, we will revisit permanent photographic monitoring stations that were established in 1994 and resampled in 1998 as part of Aquarius missions led by Dr. Gittings. Second, we will expand our "rapid assessment" monitoring program to multiple sites and depths at Conch Reef, focusing on deep reef habitats that are difficult to study using conventional scuba diving techniques. Our rapid assessment program is "low tech" because we use pencils and slates to record data during dives, rather than by taking photographs or video. However, the approach is incredibly powerful because we are using the worlds most powerful computers and imaging systems - our brains and eyes. Our sampling program is more detailed than any photograph or video can capture, and the statistical design of the program in innovative and robust. Plus, our data comes up on slates and immediately gets entered into spreadsheets for analysis. Results are almost instantaneous.

During the mission, we will post summary statistics of our work from inside Aquarius. This quick turn-around from collecting data to summarizing results is one of the advantages of the rapid assessment approach to coral reef monitoring. Work conducted will include: 1) percent cover estimates for all the major coral reef organisms; 2) species diversity measurements for corals, sponges, gorgonians, and fishes: 3) abundance measurements of corals (including the smallest juveniles that can be identified) and gorgonians, and selected invertebrates including lobsters, urchins, and anemones; and 4) permanently marking corals that are measured for growth and condition. You can click for details about our methods or to view summary results from our previous rapid assessment work in the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas.

Combined, our efforts will produce the most detailed studies ever conducted of deep reefs in the Florida Keys. Later this year we will sample several additional deep reefs in the upper, middle, and lower Keys using mixed gas diving, but we won't be able to gather as much data as we can from Aquarius. We also have several smaller projects that we will conduct from Aquarius, depending on how much time we have after completing our two primary objectives. We will conduct fish censuses throughout the day and night, we will collect gastropods to evaluate species richness, and we will core several deep water coral colonies (if we can find the right species, and they are large enough) that will be used for growth measurements. Interestingly, corals produce annual growth rings, similar to what are produced by trees.

More information about coral reefs in Florida and worldwide under U.S. jurisdiction is available at the following two links:

• "Why coral reefs look the way they do in Florida." A summary of factors affecting coral reef condition in the Keys, emphasizing natural and human-caused disturbances.
• For a broad overview of U.S. coral reefs, including Caribbean and Pacific locations, you can link to NOAA's State of the Coastal Environment Report - The Extent and Condition of U.S. Coral Reefs.