Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation
Providing science-based solutions to protect and restore ocean health
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 14 Crown of thorns starfish (COTS) have undergone population explosions since at least the 1960s and scientists and managers have tried to control these outbreaks for just as long. The standard practice to control COTS …
A mass bleaching event in the Indian Ocean turns corals cotton-candy shades of pink and blue Written by Elizabeth Rauer The phrase ‘coral-bleaching’ brings to mind ghostly-white skeletons of coral but what we found when we dived on reefs in the …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 13 Corals have very few defenses against crown of thorns starfish (COTS). Their shape may partially protect them, especially species with long, closely spaced branches that are inaccessible to the stomach of the starfish. There …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 12 “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum This beautiful statement was spoken in …
Written by Alison Barrat Comparing a bleached anemone to the undead may be a bit of a stretch, but it is fair to say a bleached anemone is hovering somewhere between life and death and depending on what happens next, …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 11 Every diver will have a selection of fish that make them smile each time they come across them. For me, one of the new additions to my list this year was the two-spot banded …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 10 Crown of thorns starfish (COTS) are novel among the animal kingdom for many reasons. They can shed an appendage, or even lose more than half their body and survive by quickly re-growing the injured …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 9 What has been really interesting for us during this research mission are the differences between each resort; the people, the location, the resort, the transport, the reefs… After we finished working at Gili Lankanfushi …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 8 Ask anyone to name a fish found on a coral reef, and I almost guarantee most will reply “clownfish!” A fish made famous by Disney/Pixar’s 2003 film Finding Nemo. What most of these people …
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 7 One of the most challenging questions we are regularly asked is where the crown of thorns starfish (COTS) come from. A reef can be unaffected for years or even decades and then suddenly thousands …
