Media Category: MCR

A well camouflaged sea slug, Sagaminopteron psychedelicum, moves over a sponge on the surface of a bommie.

Maintaining a healthy distance from an eel emerging from a bommie. It is trying to figure out if my fingers would make a tasty snack.

Incredible structure of Pavona duerdeni.

A coral bommie at ~10ft depth in Moorea

A Crown of Thorns Seastar eats a coral, leaving behind a bleached skeleton. The Seastars graze selectively, eating some species before others, but eventually consume most of the live coral on the reef.

Crown of Thorns Seastars next to a partially bleached coral. The seastars can only eat what they can access, leading to the bleached coral ends and living interior.

MCR-LTER04-proposal

Yet another reef topolography in Moorea. This study sampled many different reefs and locations on each reef across the LTER.

Moorea harbors a wide diversity of both corals and fish, with intricate relationships between the two.

Moorea’s vibrant coral reefs are found in shallow water, which spurs competition between corals and fast growing photosynthetic algae.