Hi,
My myself and a colleague are Marine Biology Masters Students at from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK. We are planning to undertake our masters projects on artificial reefs of which there is a large number along the stretch of coast from Miami to West Palm beach beginning on the 16th June - 22nd July
We are specifically interested in surveying the quarried limestone reefs, to reduce variables on substrate settlement, of which we have narrowed down to 23 sites, with deploy dates ranging from 1988 - 2013. From this we intend to create two publishable papers, one as a time series of reef development/recruitment (ie how it changes overtime) and another focus on some of the functional differences (such as trophic interactions) between artificial reefs of different age and natural reefs. We will also need to survey a few natural reefs as a baseline control.
We were wondering if anyone has any experience diving any of the 'quarried limestone' sites along this stretch of coast and could give us any advice on the general conditions. In addition we are still looking for "cheap" method, as we have limited funding, of getting out to the sites which are further away, so we would appreciate if anyone had any recommendations of dive companies/boat charters/clubs/indivduals etc who would be willing to take us. We are both experienced divers, myself am an Open water instructor and my colleague is a divemaster and also licensed to drive powerboats.
If anyone is interested in getting involved with us you are more than welcome, just drop me an email:
abygrave92@hotmail.com, we can easily teach you our survey methods. the data will being added to the Reef Life Survey (RLS) database once we have completed.
Thanks,
Alistair
