experimental reef lab - NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory

Scientists at AOML push boundaries to investigate coral resilience of mesophotic reefs

Chris Malanuk — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:11:10 +0000

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) consists of 160 miles of dispersed banks with underwater mountains, ridges, and troughs over 80 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, and it hosts the highest recorded coral cover of any reef within the greater U.S. Atlantic region. While the relatively shallow coral reef caps of […]

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New study indicates Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease may be inhibited by warmer waters

Chris Malanuk — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 14:59:45 +0000

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is the deadliest known coral disease to species with a hard skeleton (i.e., Scleractinians), causing rapidly-expanding, bare lesions to form across a coral’s skeleton until there is no more living tissue. The pathogen or microbes leading to the spread of this disease have yet to be identified. Yet scientists […]

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New study demonstrates the impacts of multiple stressors on reef-building corals

Chris Malanuk — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:53:01 +0000

In a new study, scientists at AOML and the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (CIMAS) demonstrated how some genotypes of the reef-building coral Acropora cervicornis (Staghorn Coral), listed on the Endangered Species Act, proved resilient when exposed to high nutrient levels or disease, but not when the two stressors were […]

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Investigating the impacts of climate change on reef-building corals using robotic arms

AOML Communications — Wed, 08 May 2024 21:12:53 +0000

Blue lights fill the room. The faint smell of salt emanates throughout the space as wires and tubes intricately suspended over robotic arms move along custom-built tracks over four rows of tanks filled with seawater - and fragments of critically-endangered corals. In the Experimental Reef Lab, scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) are investigating how crucial reef-building coral species are affected by the impacts of climate change using a suite of open-source robotic arms designed and built at AOML.

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Sediments a Likely Culprit in Spread of Deadly Disease on Florida Coral Reefs, Study Finds

AOML Communications — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 14:45:47 +0000

MIAMI—A new study found that seafloor sediments have the potential to transmit a deadly pathogen to local corals and hypothesizes that sediments have played a role in the persistence of a devastating coral disease outbreak throughout Florida and the Caribbean.

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Characterizing Coral Resilience in the Anthropocene: A Reef in the “New Normal”

AOML Communications — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 13:00:00 +0000

It can be hard to stay upbeat as a marine biologist, especially with the onslaught of existential threats like climate change facing the planet. Coral reefs are arguably the ecosystem that stands to lose the most with respect to climate change, namely because the resident organisms are highly sensitive to elevated temperatures. Furthermore, the limestone-based reef framework itself is diminishing before our eyes due to the accompanying rise in carbon dioxide levels (which decreases oceanic pH, leading to ocean acidification). That being said, there are corals out there that display resilience, continuing to thrive in habitats that would appear decidedly marginalized to even the untrained eye.

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Scientists at AOML Present Coral Research at the First Virtual International Coral Reef Symposium

AOML Communications — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 18:17:10 +0000

Coral scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) will be presenting their research at the 14th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) from July 19-23, 2021, which will be held virtually for the first time in the history of the ICRS.

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AOML’s Ian Enochs Awarded DOC Silver Medal Award

AOML Communications — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 15:41:07 +0000

AOML coral ecologist, Ian Enochs, was recently awarded with the Department of Commerce Silver Medal Award for his leadership in developing and implementing the Sub-Surface Automated Sampler (SAS). The DOC Silver Medal is awarded to federal employees for exceptional performance characterized by noteworthy contributions which have a direct and lasting impact.

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Coral Reefs will be Unable to Keep Pace with Sea-Level Rise

AOML Communications — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 19:39:44 +0000

NOAA contributed to a study published today in the journal Nature that compares the upward growth rates of coral reefs with predicted rates of sea-level rise and found many reefs would be submerged in water so deep it will hamper their growth and survival. The study was done by an international team of scientists led by the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

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Coral Bleaching Study Offers Clues about the Future of the Florida Keys Reef Ecosystem

AOML Communications — Sat, 05 May 2018 19:43:41 +0000

A recent study by AOML and partners identified coral communities at Cheeca Rocks in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary that appear to be more resilient than other nearby reefs to coral bleaching after back to back record breaking hot summers in 2014 and 2015 and increasingly warmer waters. This local case study provides a small, tempered degree of optimism that some Caribbean coral communities may be able to acclimate to warming waters.

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