I have thus supervised post-graduate studies in subjects as diverse as the development of operational management procedures for recreational invertebrate fisheries and microbial indicators of water quality in estuaries and the marine environment. My personal efforts in the field of coral taxonomy resulted in the description of a new soft coral genus and a number of species, chapters on corals in a field guide on marine life in East Africa and the islands of the Western Indian Ocean, and a CD-Rom and field guide on soft corals.Īs Deputy Director of ORI, my broader research brief included the supervision of projects on invertebrate fisheries monitoring and management, as well as the biology of mussels, oysters, rock lobsters and other crustaceans.
The local coral reef programme thus yielded a formidable wealth of information for decisionsupport in the management of our reef MPAs and provided input for the proclamation of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park as a World Heritage Site as well as promulgation of the Aliwal Shoal MPA. It has resulted in the generation of higher degrees by postgraduate students in all these fields.
The scope of the work was wide-ranging, from basic studies on coral taxonomy, reef surveys and longterm reef monitoring, to research on subjects such as coral genetics and reproduction larval dispersal, recruitment and reef connectivity reef fish communities natural products regional coral bleaching and the effects of climate change reef usage, and an economic valuation of the reefs and their ecosystem services. My research was conducted in an active role as well as in the capacity of co-ordinator of a multi-institutional, international effort. During the my time at the Institute, I directed invertebrate and biodiversity-related research, as well as a number of multi-disciplinary projects while personally specializing in subtropical and coral reef research off the East African coast and in the southern Red Sea. Joined the Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI) in Durban in 1972 and retired in 2012.
0 kommentar(er)
