Elevated ocean temperatures have threatened coral reefs around the world for over a year, but this October marked a tipping point.  NOAA scientists declared the onset of a global coral reef bleaching event impacting coral reefs in every ocean basin, and projected the bleaching will only intensify in 2016. This is the third such global bleaching event in history.

Kelly Speare, a 2012 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) student and 2013 BIOS summer intern, was chosen from a pool of qualified candidates to represent BIOS at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, HI. This bi-annual meeting is convened by the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), The Oceanography Society (TOS), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and brings together scientists from around the world to discuss current topics in marine science, technology, and education.

“How resilient are coral reefs to global climate change?”

People know that the health of a mother, and the environment in which she lives, influences the health of her baby. Still, it may come as a bit of a surprise that a similar relationship holds true with one of the ocean’s oldest inhabitants: corals.

Growing up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Danielle Becker’s parents encouraged her and her sister to explore and appreciate the natural world. For many years, her family traveled to visit relatives in Florida over spring break and Becker recalls feeling amazed by the ocean.

Corals, with their calcium carbonate skeletons and symbiotic photosynthetic algae, are among the first organisms to be negatively impacted by climate change. Warming waters cause coral to expel the algae, called zooxanthellae, while a gradually acidifying ocean, resulting from increased amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolved in the seawater, can weaken and even dissolve coral skeletons.

A team of technical divers and scientists, accompanied by an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and molecular biology tools, will comprehensively map, photograph, and study part of Bermuda’s deepest reef system with funds from the Cawthorn Innovation Award, now in its third year of supporting the work of BIOS scientists.

Growing up on his parent’s coffee farm in Brazil, Samuel Faria didn’t spend much time thinking about the ocean. In fact, he wanted to work with teenagers as a high school teacher or college professor. When he was 8, his family moved to a small town in southeastern Brazil, which was his home until he began his undergraduate degree in biological sciences at the University of São Paulo. This is where his passion for science began, and also where he went on to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative biology.

When marine biologists Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley and Tali Mass met at a science conference last June, they bonded over their shared interest in deep-water coral reef research and their specialized scuba diving skills. Both are technical divers, skilled at using equipment called rebreathers—which recycle every breath and incorporate a mix of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen gases—to access corals living at depths of about 100 to 500 feet (30 to 150 meters).