[Coral-List] WEDNESDAY- Quiet Oceans Presentation by CCMI's Director of Research to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN

[Beth Chafin]

Dear Colleagues,

You are cordially invited to a NFI Seminar on Wednesday 8th December 2021, from 15:00 to 15:45 (CET/UTC+1) in the NFI-Seminars Virtual Meeting Room. The speaker will be Dr Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley, Director of Research at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute.

For this session all participants will be remotely connected through Zoom (https://fao.zoom.us/j/3556257601). Please also note the password (NFIseminar). If there are any problems connecting, please contact Stefania Savore (Stefania.savore at fao.org) and/or Ruben Sanchez Daroqui (ruben.sanchezdaroqui at fao.org) .

The title of the seminar is:

Quiet Oceans: Impacts of reduced human activity due to COVID-19 on fish populations in the Cayman Islands

About the topic:

In the Cayman Islands, the oceans have been quiet for over a year due to the lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Human activity has been significantly reduced, in particular due to the halt in international tourism in the Cayman Islands. This has provided us with a unique opportunity to study how fish populations react when human activities are minimized and the oceans are relatively ‘quiet’. In July 2020, when lockdown restrictions lessened, we began a series of fish population surveys in and around the typically heavily trafficked George Town harbour, with initial surveys occurring when the oceans had been untouched for an unprecedented period and subsequent surveys occurring every 2 months thereafter. Results of these surveys were then compared to surveys from similar sites conducted in 2018. Fish densities were found to increase significantly immediately after the lockdown period with a significant positive trend of continued increasing density overtime. Biomass also showed a significant positive trend over time, however this response lagged behind that of density, suggesting that recruitment may be driving the population rebound. Herbivorous species, and in particular, parrotfishes, were found to have been impacted more than other trophic guilds, with significant increases in density over time. Juvenile and initial stage parrotfishes were also found to increase in density, while terminal stage male densities did not change, further suggesting that recruitment is driving recovery. Overall, this study shows that the reduced human activity associated with COVID-19 restrictions had a positive impact on local fish populations, however full recovery of the ecosystem may take several months to years as population density and biomass are continuing to increase. Consideration of our activities and their impacts to the marine environment, therefore, must be considered as borders re-open and post-COVID tourism activities resume.

About the speaker:

Dr Goodbody-Gringley is the Director of Research at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute. Previously, she was an Assistant Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) where she led the Reef Ecology and Evolution Laboratory. Dr Goodbody-Gringley 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 the University of Bologna, Italy. She 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. Her current 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.

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Beth Chafin

Science Communications & Development Manager

Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI)

Cayman Islands

Reefresearch.org