Amanda Alker has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) internship opportunity at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. Her project with Rachel Parsons will focus on antibiotic resistance in bacteria by the Seabright sewage outfall. This ecologically important project is funded in part by the Bermudian government. The twelve week internship will start August 30th.  In January Amanda will return to FAU's Honors college and her work in the Coral Reef Health and Ecology Lab at Harbor Branch. Congratulations Amanda and good luck in Bermuda!  

Both Amanda Alker and Jennifer Polinski celebrated the completion of their summer internships with excellent presentations at Harbor Branch's Summer Intern Symposium.  Amanda's work on coral bacterial community structure at Flower Garden Banks will serve as a foundation for her undergraduate honor's thesis at FAU over the next two years.  Likewise, Jennifer will complete her honor's thesis at Albion College based on her investigation of zooxanthellae and chlorophyll concentrations in corals from St. Lucie Reef.  Congratulations to both!  

Members of the Voss Lab headed to Summerland Key and the Mote Tropical Research Lab this past week to revisit long term monitoring sites in the lower Florida Keys.  The team conducted comprehensive coral surveys and sampled corals actively infected with black band disease, as well as recovering colonies that have been tracked since 2007. The good news, few coral colonies experience total colony mortality after getting hit with black band.  The bad news, most corals experience slow degradation and bioerosion in the exposed areas left behind by the disease.   With assistance from Erich Bartels and Cory Walter, the team had a very productive week completing all our project goals!