The 1st in-person meeting (after 27 virtual sessions!) for members of the Coral Conservation in the Overseas Territories (CCOT) working group is underway!

The C-COT working group is putting into practice yesterday’s theory session by Dr Greta Aeby on Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease monitoring in today’s field session on Grand Caymans’ coral reefs. Thank you Cayman Islands Department of Environment for all the field support during the C-COT workshop!

Hundreds attended Cayman’s 1st ever “Coral Fest”. Premier & I gave remarks. I applaud the unprecedented work regionally to tackle Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease. Many thanks to DoE, the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee & the cross OT coral working group for their hard work

Way to go Matteo! Smart and stylish!

Princesses, vampires, and mad scientists! This Halloween party had it all. This Marine Station surely knows how to have fun! 💀🎃🪦🧟👑🦇✈️☮️🐈‍⬛SMS Benthic Ecology Lab SmithsonianMarineStn @CuesClues Kelly Pitts @kscheue22 Jess S Glanz Jennifer Sneed Carolina Melendez Declet Natalie_Danek Emma Chesley (she/her)

Congratulations Matteo and Aurora for successfully defending this week! What a power couple! The CHAMP lab is proud of you and happy we got to be part of your journey. Way to go! 🎉🥳🍾 We are excited to see what the next chapter brings. Dr. & Dr.! Matteo Monti, PhD Aurora Giorgi, PhD

The SmithsonianMarineStn had the best holiday party- including decorate your own scientist cookies and Indian River Lagoon dirt pudding! SMS Benthic Ecology Lab

Tune in to our head scientist Dr. Valerie Paul 1/11/23 9 am EST to hear an overview of environmental research at the SmithsonianMarineStn, focused on new research programs including Indian River Lagoon monitoring, biomedical research on marine natural products, coral disease, and eDNA

Probiotics Friday! 🎉😎 We are busy creating probiotic treatments for a new study being conducted in the FL Keys. We want to see if we can heal corals that consistently get reinfected with SCTLD after being treated with antibiotics! Fingers crossed! 🤞

We absolutely adored spending time with Dr. Mallon while she was at SMS! We learned a ton and got to laugh a lot together along the way. We know she will smash it in her future endeavors! Way to go Dr Jenny Mallon !!!!! 🎉🥳

We are trialing a few new strains of probiotics on corals in aquria. Carolina Melendez Declet is busy fragmenting M. cavernosa colonies, which will be dosed once weekly to determine if the strains can slow or stop #SCTLD

✨ New job announcement at the Smithsonian Marine Station! ✨ SMS Benthic Ecology Lab SmithsonianMarineStn

Our paper detailing the first coral probiotic effective against #SCTLD has been published! nature.com/articles/s4200…

The local Wilmington news covering a certain UNCW Biology & Marine Biology Department prof on the work done by his lab & collaborators to develop probiotic treatments for #SCTLD. wect.com/2023/04/06/unc…

Thank you Reef Builders for this great article reefbuilders.com/2023/04/07/sci…

An update: I am completing my masters thesis in the Coral Health and Marine Probiotics Lab at the Smithsonian Marine Station! Three Seas The Coral Health and Marine Probiotics Lab

Our CHAMP lab helped with this research investigating microbial size classes associated with #SCTLD. We are proud and excited to see this work published!