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"When you're in the water so much of what you see is new to science. Whenever we go on to a coral reef, we're constantly surprised." That's probably why Dr. James W. Porter, professor of ecology and marine sciences at the University of Georgia, loves what he does. But early in the 1980s, the surprises weren't pleasant. That's when he spotted a disturbing trend: "the loss of living coral from the reef. We sounded the alarm, spoke to Congress and its scientific meetings, and we did get people to pay attention," says Porter.
As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency funded the Florida Keys Coral Reef Monitoring Project, for which Porter is a principal investigator. "We're looking at reefs all the way from Miami, out past Key West, to the Dry Tortugas," he explains. "By putting out monitoring stations all the way down, and surveying annually, the study has brought out a number of really interesting new things."
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