June 27th - Coral Reef Foundation - online presentation

Mrs Postal

New member
The TBRC will be hosting an online education presentation at 6pm on June 27th via Zoom. Details will follow on the Zoom.

The Coral Reef Foundation is providing the TBRC with an online education presentation titled "Introduction to the degradation of the Florida Reef Tract and the innovate coral conversation measure implemented by CRF. . The meeting will be via Zoom and I will add that link as we get closer to the 27th. Our presenters will be Charis Peterson & Ashton Hughes.

Charis grew up in Michigan where her curiosity for the underwater world started in the local rivers and lakes. She always had a passion for marine biology. While she was in high school, her family unexpectedly had to relocate to coastal Georgia. Moving across the country allowed her to pursue her passion. After learning about the threats and harm humans have caused to coral reefs, she decided she did not want to just study coral reefs, but she wanted to be a part of the solution. Charis is a recent graduate from the University of Houston-Clear Lake with a M.S. in Biotechnology and a concentration in Molecular Biotechnology. She received her B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Coastal Ecology from the College of Coastal Georgia in 2017. She is a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor and has enjoyed working as a dive professional in the British Virgin Islands and the Florida Keys.

Ashton has been mesmerized by the ocean since she can remember. She visited the beach for the first time when she was six months old and has since spent countless summer days on Alabama and Florida's coasts. It wasn't until she visited the Hawaiian Islands that she realized the condition the coral reefs were in "“ appalled to find dead coral rubble, drained of almost all life. Unfortunately, as Ashton traveled to other tropical destinations she found the same thing - bleached, diseased, algae-smothered, and dead coral.

Ashton attended Auburn University and studied Conservation of Organismal Biology to begin her search for answers to this crisis. While at Auburn, she completed field and lab-based research focusing on marine biology. She joined Operation Wallacea during the summer of 2018 and completed field research on the monitoring methods of coral reefs at Akumal Bay, Mexico with hopes to find the quickest and most efficient way to monitor reefs on a global scale. In 2019, Ashton completed research in Dr. Nanette Chadwick's lab on the major modes and rates of clonal replication of the corallimorpharian, Ricordia florida.

www.coralrestoration.org/education
 
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