Multimedia Items

With their clear water and multi-colored organisms, coral reef ecosystems such as this in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) are an iconic sight. But corals also exist […]

Katie Shamberger, assistant professor at Texas A&M University, checks the Remote Access Sampler (RAS) on Dongsha Atoll, a coral reef ecosystem in the South China Sea. The RAS is […]

Scientists have predicted that ocean temperatures will rise in the equatorial Pacific by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems. But a new study published […]

Reef-building corals create habitats for many other organisms. The coral reefs of the Red Sea are highly diverse and unique in the world, providing shelter and sustenance for […]

Coral reefs are among the most diverse, productive ecosystems on Earth, but they are also among the most threatened. Fragile reefs are particularly sensitive to environmental changes, such as warming […]

Coral reefs often extend from a sandy bottom to just beneath the water’s surface, forming broad reef flats. Barely a foot below the surface, the flats can be a harsh […]

An inflatable boat and dive-tour operators stand by at a coral reef’s edge in the Red Sea, where WHOI scientists are studying the unique, pristine reef ecosystems along Saudi Arabia’s […]

Reef-building corals create habitats for many other organisms. The corals reefs of the Red Sea are highly diverse and unique in the world, providing shelter and sustenance for abundant […]

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Chawalit “Net” Charoenpong teaches WHOI Summer Student Fellow Brooke Rasina to measure the amount of nitrogen in coral skeleton samples using a laboratory instrument […]

WHOI geologist Pat Lohmann and MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Tom DeCarlo deploy the RATS ( Read More

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 […]

Summer Student Fellow Ashley Grey investigates a coral’s response to rising ocean temperatures while working in the lab of WHOI scientist Anne Cohen. During the summer of […]

MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Max Kaplan finishes installing a DMON, a broadband digital acoustic recorder developed at WHOI, on a coral reef in the U.S. Virgin Islands. […]

WHOI postdoctoral researcher Katie Shamberger makes adjustments to VINDTA (Versatile INstrument for the Determination of Total inorganic carbon and titration Alkalinity) in the lab of associate scientist Dan McCorckle. […]

Tropical coral reefs make up a small part of Earth’s ocean but are among the most diverse, productive ecosystems in the world. The fisheries and tourism that reefs support make […]

Looping through the open ocean, this ribbon-shaped jelly-like animal, called a “Venus’ girdle” comb jelly, catches food with a sticky substance. This one was seen in the ocean off […]

Viewed in polarized light, this thin section of the skeleton of a Pacific reef-building coral, Acropora gemmifera, looks more like abstract art. WHOI researchers are currently involved in a […]

Red Sea coral communities thrive on vertical walls at the reef’s edge, where individual coral colonies compete for access to sunlight and food-carrying currents. The shapes of the colonies change […]

Gliding on hundreds of tiny suction-cup feet, A Crown-of-thorns sea star roams the reef, consuming
immobile corals and leaving bare coral skeleton behind. Common in the Pacific and […]

Through a research agreement with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, WHOI scientists are studying coral reef ecosystems, fisheries, and water circulation along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast. […]