Join us for a screening of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's Virtual Science Talk "Saving Coral Reefs in the Sunshine State, with Mote Marine Laboratory". Special Thanks to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center for providing permission to screen their content! 

Florida's coral reefs have lost over 95% of their living coral cover over the last 50 years and are on the brink of functional extinction. In our first evening science talk of the year, Erinn Muller will reveal how scientists at Mote Marine Laboratory are meeting the dire need for active coral restoration. She’ll touch on methods like coral nursery rearing and outplanting, and present the latest research helping restored corals resist disease and adapt to climate change. She will also highlight the importance of live coral biobanking and cryopreservation. In the race against environmental degradation, Mote scientists have created an International Coral Gene Bank as a “Noah’s Ark for coral species preservation.”

Image credit: Staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) by James G. Douglass, via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC-4.0)