Katie Cramer collects coral skeletons and shells from excavation pit near Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Katie Cramer, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Oceanography and a fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) collected more than 35,000 shells of clams and other molluscs from large pits that she excavated underwater at multiple reef sites in the Bocas del Toro region of Caribbean Panama.
This is all a part of a new study by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Washington and Lee University.
Cramer hopes that results of this study will help raise awareness of the need to enact better land management practices to protect and restore imperiled Caribbean coral reefs.
Read more about the study and Katie here.