UB-ERI Presents Long-Term Turneffe Coral Reef Monitoring at International Coral Reef Symposium

The University of Belize Environmental Research Institute was represented at the 16th International Coral Reef Symposium in Auckland New Zealand, from the 19th to 24th July, 2026. Held every four years, the ICRS is the world's leading symposium on coral reef science, bringing together more than 2,100 scientists, conservation practitioners, policymakers and community leaders from over 90 countries to share the latest research and discuss the future of coral reefs in the face of climate change and other global pressures.

We were excited to present a poster showcasing our long-term coral reef monitoring dataset, illustrating how the coral communities of Turneffe Atoll have changed over the past 15 years. This analysis was catalysed by Fulbright Scholar Dr. Stephen Levas from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, who was resident with UB-ERI during the spring semester this year. Stephen brought together ecological community analyses expert Dr. Justin Baumann of Bates College, Maine, and Ninon Martinez, who is currently pursuing her PhD at Boston University, alongside the UB-ERI team.

Together, the team showed that the three major reef habitats of Turneffe Atoll, back reef, shallow fore reef and deep fore reef, retained distinct ecological identities. However, across the atoll, stony coral communities are increasingly dominated by weedy and stress-tolerant coral species, alongside a growing prevalence of biofilms, turf algae and macroalgae. These findings provide important insights into how Belize's reefs are responding to environmental change and highlight the value of long-term monitoring for informing conservation and management.

The long-term dataset used for this study brings together 15 years of standardized coral reef monitoring from Turneffe Atoll Marine Reserve, spanning 2010 to 2025. It includes information on coral communities, benthic cover, coral recruitment, reef fish and key reef invertebrates, collected using MBRS Synoptic Monitoring Program (MBRS-SMP) and Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA) protocols. For form information on the data see here https://datadryad.org/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.c866t1gcn)

This publication of this dataset was made possible through the Resilience Reef Initiative which supported the collation and validation of the data and through a collaboration with our strong Turneffe partner, the Turneffe Atoll Sustainability Association.

The next International Coral Reef Symposium will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2030, where the global coral reef community will once again come together to share new scientific discoveries and advance solutions for the conservation of coral reefs worldwide.