My first adventure in the world of sponge research was working on a NOAA-funded project as a new masters student with my advisor Dr. Marilyn Brandt, committee member Dr. Andia Chaves Fonnegra, and collaborators Drs. Deborah Gochfeld (U. Mississippi) and Julie Olson (U. Alabama). It was awesome being able to learn from this powerhouse team of women scientists! We deployed recruitment plates (plain ceramic tiles) on six coral reefs around St. Thomas, collected them after a few months, and counted the baby corals that landed on (or recruited to) those tiles. We found that surrounding sponges affected how many recruits made it to those tiles. This research was published in Marine Biology in 2019. Check out the paper and some other cool images of recruitment tiles, coral recruits, and the people who made this research possible here.
last updated summer 2022
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