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Coral Clouds

WHOI senior scientist Konrad Hughen swims through dense clouds of bluestreak fusiliers in the Chagos Marine Reserve, the world’s largest no-take marine reserve. The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition has been documenting how these uninhabited, relatively pristine coral reef ecosystems may be changing as a result of increasing global temperatures and ocean acidification. WHOI scientists are collaborating to study some of the oldest and largest corals in the reefs in order to reveal their resilience to variations in global temperature and chemistry over the last few centuries. (Photo by Justin Ossolinski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)