News

The Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) is holding the final Reef Lecture for the 2020 series at the National Gallery on 10 November 2020. Dr Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley, CCMI’s Director of Research, will speak about two areas of significant interest to CCMI: resilience and restoration of coral reefs in Cayman.  The lecture will discuss results from CCMI’s past restoration studies and present a new outlook for development of resilient coral populations through advanced restoration techniques that will shape the future of coral reefs in the Cayman Islands. 

While there are numerous local causes of coral loss (e.g., pollution, destructive fishing practices, etc.), the two most detrimental stressors currently impacting the survival of corals are bleaching caused by thermal stress and disease. As our ocean continues to warm and outbreaks of disease become more prevalent, it is critical to understand the capacity of organisms to adapt and/or acclimate to changing conditions and seek solutions to promote resilience and sustain biodiversity.

Initiating a science-based restoration program in the Cayman Islands in 2011, CCMI has been and will continue to be a pioneer in the coral reef restoration arena. Current restoration empirical investigations coupled with available long-term ecosystem data at CCMI provides the basis for furthering knowledge of reef resilience.

“We are pleased to finish our 2020 Reef Lecture series with an in-person event that shares work that is coming out of CCMI. Engaging the public in our efforts is valuable as this information is directly relevant to our lives in

Cayman. We want everyone to understand the urgency in finding solutions to coral resilience and restoration and how we will all benefit from CCMI’s research and activity to save coral reefs,” states Robyn Larkin, Project Manager at CCMI.

With Covid-19 restrictions in Cayman being minimal, CCMI is please to return to an in-person Reef Lecture format. This session will be held Tuesday, 10 November, at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in the Dart Auditorium. Advance registration is requested due to limited seating and can be done online at https://future-of-coral-reefs.eventbrite.com.au.

Thanks to the support of Healthy Reefs sponsors, there is no cost to participate; however, donations to CCMI are appreciated and will support the institute’s work for coral reef resilience, as we continue to discover which corals are resilient and can adapt to changing climate.

About the Speaker

Dr Goodbody-Gringley is CCMI's Director of Research, heading up CCMI’s Vision 2025 Reef Resilience and Restoration Research team. Previously, Dr Goodbody-Gringley was an Assistant Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) where she led the Reef Ecology and Evolution Laboratory.

  Dr Goodbody-Gringley's research focuses on population structure, reproductive ecology, and genetic connectivity of a variety of organisms that inhabit tropical coral reef ecosystems ranging from inshore shallow reefs down to the mesophotic zone, with the goal of understanding how ecosystems function in order to maintain biodiversity. To address questions related to reef health, evolution, resilience, and recovery, she combines large-scale in situ ecological surveys, small-scale laboratory experiments, and molecular ecology. Dr Goodbody-Gringley’s current projects include a collaboration with A. Trembanis from the University of Delaware using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in combination with technical diving to map deep reef systems and couple the physical environment with biological communities. She is also working with H. Putnam from the University of Rhode Island and J. Bruno from the University of North Carolina to determine thermal tolerances of corals to climate change and the capacity for corals to adapt over a single generation. In 2019, she traveled to Israel to work with T. Mass from Haifa University to explore how patterns of development differ between corals on shallow and deep reefs in the Red Sea.

Gretchen completed her BSc at the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. She then held postdoctoral positions at Mote Marine Laboratory and University of Bologna, Italy. Gretchen has a broad background in benthic marine ecology and is particularly interested in the evolution of life history strategies and how that in turn serves to structure population dynamics and maintain genetic diversity.

CCMI’s Healthy Reefs campaign, including activities such as the Reef Lecture Series, are sponsored by Foster’s, Ogier, Butterfield Cayman, Aureum Re, Dart, Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, and Knighthead Annuity.

For more information about CCMI, upcoming events, and how to help protect our reefs, visit www.reefresearch.org.