From the Archives: Texas OneGulf Launches Research Response to Flower Gardens Die-Off
Experts with the Texas OneGulf Center of Excellence responded after a die-off of corals and other invertebrates was observed in the Gulf of Mexico’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Galveston.
Sport divers aboard the M/V Fling reported the die-off in 2016 after finding patches of white mat coating the previously vibrant reef. Texas OneGulf researchers, led by the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, worked quickly to shift resources to respond to the unusual mortality event.
Due in part to their distance from shore, the Flower Garden Banks are touted by scientists as one of the healthiest coral-reef systems in the Western Hemisphere, so the discovery of unprecedented numbers of dead or dying corals, sponges, brittle stars, calms and other invertebrates in large, separate locations is a disturbing puzzle for scientists.
