Red Tree Coral is a coral usually found at depths of over a few hundred meters in the North Pacific, however in the Alaskan fjords often grows much shallower, within a few tens of meters.

Administered by National Geographic Mission Programs, the NGS/Waitt Grants Program makes grants between $5,000 and $15,000 for exploratory research - below is a list of the most recent awards granted. To date, the program has funded over 150 field projects. For more information on the program, please visit the NGS/Waitt Grants section of our website.

Anthropology

Grantee: James B. Rossie, Stony Brook University
Region: Africa
Project: Excavation of Miocene Ape Skeleton
Abstract: The 2008 pilot season of this paleontological field project in the early to middle Miocene sediments West of Lake Turkana resulted in the discovery of a highly fossiliferous locality at around 17.5 million years of age. On the penultimate day of the season, team members began to find very well-preserved postcranial elements of a small ape eroding out of the richest fossil layer. The team excavated what they could, and then stabilized the erosional surface. The collected elements comprise much of the left arm and part of the right, including a near complete humerus, the proximal half of the ulna, two distal ulnae, and fragments of a radius. A distal tibia and several hand bones were also recovered. The radial fragments fit precisely onto two pieces collected by the Leakeys in the 1980s, and together comprise all but the distal end of the radius. The elements are clearly all from one individual, and were found in an area no bigger than one square meter.

Marine Biology

This coral is part of a colony with simulated fishing damage to see what happens internally when snagged in fishing gear.

Grantee: Rhian Waller, University of Maine
Region: North America
Project: Reproduction of Red Tree Coral in Alaska
Abstract: The recently discovered shallow-water population of red tree corals in Tracy Arm, Holkham Bay, Southeast Alaska provide an unprecedented opportunity to collect reproductive tissue samples at regular intervals year-round. These data will provide important and timely insights regard­ing the capability of some of the region’s dominant benthic epifauna to recover from disturbance and to recolonize areas previously disturbed by human activities. Scheduled are 5 cruises to the Tracy Arm fjord to collect such data, the first cruise was in September 2010 where the team tagged 50 colonies of Red Tree Coral, within SCUBA depths, for future collections (every 3 months for one year). Samples from this initial cruise have shown complex reproductive habits and brood structures in this species - an unusual trait for any species of coral. This mode of reproduction could lend this species as particularly vulnerable to damage and warrants further study. For more information, please visit the project blog.

Grantee: Taylor Chapple, Max Planck Institute
Region: Central America / Baja
Project: Shark Navigation
Abstract: Marine species, as variable as whales to crusta­ceans, make long-distance directional movements. Bathymetry, currents, olfaction, and celestial bodies may provide navigational cues for at least some migrant species, but many species navigate in areas lacking these characteristics. The earth’s magnetic field, however, is pervasive throughout the ocean and is a probable cue for guiding marine navigation. Scalloped hammerhead sharks, Sphyrna lewini, are thought to use the overall magnetic field and local magnetic anomalies to orient during long-distance migrations and shorter foraging trips, respectively. The pres­ence of a magnetic compass and geomagnetic topotaxis (i.e., the ability to detect local magnetic field intensity gradi­ent across the rostrum) has been postulated for sharks but has never been empirically tested. Helmholtz coils wrapped around the head of free-swimming S. lewini can allow for artificial control of magnetic field perception. Helmholtz coil manipulations, in combination with acoustic tags that track the animals movements and record a suite of environmental characteristics (e.g., ambient magnetic field, dissolved oxy­gen), will allow for determining if and how S. lewini respond to changes in the perceived magnetic field by measuring effects on behavior. This will be the first empirical study of a compass sense and geomagnetic topotaxis in sharks, and will help describe how sharks navigate during local and long-distance movements. Because sharks are a basally derived vertebrate class, this study may also provide insight into the evolution of navigation mechanisms in vertebrates.

Archaeology

Grantee: Thomas O. Pryce, University of Oxford
Region: Asia
Project: The Hunt for Ancient Metalworkers and the Prehistory of the sub-Himalayan Silk in Nagaland, Northeast India
Abstract: Due to an ever diminishing calendrical date gradi­ent and perceived technological homologies in the appear­ance of early metallurgical traditions, it is nearly universally accepted that early Southeast Asian metallurgy was derived from 2nd millennium BCE Chinese antecedents, and it is widely agreed that these in turn have a root in supra-Hima­layan trans-Eurasian cultural transmission processes of the 3rd millennium BCE. A complete lack of data on Southeast Asia’s western flank has led to a sub-Himalayan derivation from Indian 3rd/2nd millennium BCE metallurgical traditions being dismissed out of hand. While not rejecting the ‘Out of China’ models, this project seeks to test the alternative by using surface survey and wet-sediment coring to check for signs of early metal production around copper-bearing ophiolite deposits in the geographically and culturally pivotal Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. A focussed search for extant mining gal­leries and slag heaps, combined with dated environmental evidence for atmospheric pollution sequences, deforestation episodes, and erosion modelling will present a fine-toothed comb through which any pre-modern Nagaland metallurgical evidence is unlikely to pass.

Paleontology

Researchers believe the fossil to be around 3,000 years old, but say the species itself could be very ancient.

Grantee: Alfred L. Rosenberger, Brooklyn College
Region: Central America / Caribbean
Project: Monkey Fossils from the Dominican Republic, an Underwater Cave
Abstract: This project tests the idea that exploring for fossils, particularly monkeys, in the submerged caves of the Dominican Republic is a productive new approach to discovering the faunal remains of an extinct Caribbean eco­system that is virtually unknown. While open water underwa­ter archaeology has proven its mettle, there have been no systematic assessments of the paleontological potential of inland underwater cave systems. The southeastern coastal landscape of the Dominican Republic is riddled with caves, wet and dry. In two prior diving trips to one site near Baya­hibe, the team discovered an exceptionally well preserved skull and much of the skeleton of the extinct primate Antillothrix bernensis, both firsts, and miniscule jaws of insectivores and rodents, sliver-like limbs of bats and nearly complete skulls and skeletons of ground sloths, i.e., examples of all the non-flying mammal orders that made it to the isolated Greater Antilles. Was this an extraordinarily lucky find, or was it indicative of a more widespread phenomenon? Did the cadavers of the lost mammals of Hispaniola routinely avoid the dismemberment, destructive consumption, and physical erosion often typical of the fossilization process?

Biology

Grantee: Cindy Dupuis, University of Hawaii
Region: North America
Project: Restoration Model for Lowland Wet Forests of Hawaii
Abstract: The Hawaiian Islands, with their high degree of endemism, have been greatly altered by introduced spe­cies, resulting in transformed vegetation communities and a loss of native taxa. The easternmost part of the Island of Hawaii contains remnants of lowland wet forest, one of the most threatened habitat types, with some species of plants entirely restricted to this region. My goal is to provide a baseline from which precise and effective restoration strate­gies may be implemented, along with identifying priority areas and species. Extensive vegetation surveys throughout the eastern lower elevation (<300m) region of East Hawaii will focus on its five forest reserves. Geographical Informa­tion Systems (GIS) will analyze survey data with respect to the most important factors determining habitat type: eleva­tion (distance to the coast/salt spray exposure), lava flow age and lava flow type (texture). These analyses will esti­mate the original vegetation structure in different areas and delineate the most appropriate habitat for rare species. I will map potential and present vegetation communities in order to quantify historic changes due to human occupancy and invasive species. Given that much of the remaining native lowland wet forest is found in East Hawai’i, this study will directly assist efforts to preserve them.

Diseased fan coral

Grantee: Juan Sanchez, University of de los Andes
Region: South America
Project: Fungal Disease Host Range, Progression, and Prevalence in Gorgonian Corals at Eastern Pacific Reefs
Abstract: There is an alarming increase in diseases affecting diverse marine organisms including corals, which are not just the product of global climate change but also of terrestrial microbial pathogens finding new niches in the ocean. Given the evolving infectious capacity of terrestrial fungi, it is imperative to know the role and presence of fungal diseases in coral/octocoral tissues. The fungal disease aspergillosis, commonly affecting gorgonian corals in the Caribbean, has been recently observed the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP). This disease affected a number of pacific seafans, which are the dominant corals at these rocky reefs. This project will comprise the first approach towards examining the fungal disease host range, progression, and prevalence at TEP octocorals. Also, this project will fulfill the microbial analyses on the fungal community in healthy and diseased seafans in the Colombian TEP, which will include extensive surveys of fungal pathogens at different hosts using both traditional and molecular approaches. In addition, a monitoring program will be carried out using underwater digital imagery in order to follow the disease progression on multiple healthy and diseased octocorals every three months. Electronic data loggers will be set underwater to monitor daily water temperature and sea level during the same period.

Grantee: Sean O’Donnell, University of Washington
Region: Middle America
Project: Bivouac Checking - Automated Tracking of a Complex Cognitive Task in the Field
Abstract: This project will develop new technol­ogy: Encounternet. This automated system collects complex ecological and behavioral data in the field by recording animal movement. The project will critically assess what anecdotal observations suggest: bivouac checking by birds at army ant colonies involves integration of spatial and temporal information about an array of resources. Especially exciting is the possibility that this sophisticated behavior has evolved convergently in previously unstudied bird families, paving the way for future comparative analyses of cognitive capacities, development, and neural substrates of the be­havior. By tracking both birds’ spatial associations and their patterns of visiting army ant colonies, this project will determine how birds interact socially and across species when exploiting army ant colonies. An additional ecologically and cognitively relevant behavioral issue is how bivouac checking behavior develops in young birds. The work promises to augment development and application of Encounternet technology. The potential intellectual payoff of this exploratory work on a poorly known complex cognitive system in a field setting is great. The cognitive challenges involved in bivouac checking are likely to be comparable with other examples of complex spatial learning and memory in birds. The data will have general relevance to our understanding of cognitive capaci­ties in birds.

October and November Awards by Discipline

Anthropology - 1
Archaeology - 1
Biology - 3
Geography - 0
Geology - 0
Nautical Archaeology, Underwater - 0
Oceanography, Biological- 2
Oceanography, Physical - 0
Paleontology - 1

October and November Awards by Region

Africa / Madagascar - 1
Asia - 1
Atlantic Ocean - 0
Central America / Caribbean - 3
Europe - 0
North America - 0
Oceania - 2
South America - 1