Objective
The main objectives of the proposed research are:
* To carry out a long term quantitative account of species diversity in 4 different localities along northern Red Sea coral reefs (Hurghada, Ras Muhammad, Nueiba, Eilat). In each place, heavily visited and less visited sites will be studied.
* To establish an active restoration protocol by following the success of sexual and asexual coral recruits in situ.
* To establish an ubiquitous reef-stress bioassay (HSP70) and to assess the stress loads from tourist activities in different reef localities.
* To provide the scientific community and decision-making authorities with data for best assessment towards the active conservation of Red Sea coral reefs.
Expected Outcome
* Compliance with the INCO-DC work programme objectives. The nations within the frame of the European Community are obliged to contribute to the management of the coastal areas in the Red Sea in general and to the rehabilitation of the coral reefs in particular.
* The expected benefits for the society: In this proposal biological/ecological as well as biochemical strategies are developed to monitor coral reefs in tourist areas and to restore the environment by transplantation of corals into the denuded areas.
* Description of the subject - impact of recreational activities: More and more research studies are oriented towards the impacts of recreational activities. These studies identify and evaluate the effects of runoff and sewage discharges from tourist resorts, recreational fishing and boating impacts, effects of SCUBA and skin diving, the effects of human trampling on coral reefs and sediment resuspension. These studies clearly show that recreational activities by "innocent" visitors are usually characterized by significant damage, both directly and indirectly.
* General strategy: The strategy relies on the use of stress proteins as indicators for environmental stress and on two different types of recruits (sexual and asexual) for gardening denuded reef areas, as well as on mariculturing of propagules and adult coral subclones in "nursery" sites in situ.
* Methodology: The field investigations to study the population dynamics of hermatypic corals at 4 localities by using two techniques: (a) The use of marked line transects at fixed intervals of 1 m on flat areas and at intervals of 1 m depth on reef slopes down to 35 m depth. (b) The use of a series of photographs taken from permanently marked 1 m quadrates. Using these photographs, it will be able to follow individual colonies and estimate growth rates, mortality, species diversity, and more.
In addition studies will concentrate on the subject of coral reef restoration by following the success of both coral larvae and coral fragments transplanted in different habitats within the reef [use of sexual and asexual recruits].
Stress reaction of the corals will be assessed by determination of anthozoan HSP70-RNA and -protein using molecular biological and immunological techniques.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries fisheries
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine physiotherapy
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine transplantation
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
55099 MAINZ
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.