On a recent trip to Palmyra Atoll, members of the Smith Lab assisted US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) with the deployment of a nearshore water quality sensor.

The sensor, a Sea-Bird Electronics 16plus V2 SeaCAT Recorder with integrated WET Labs ECO-FLNTUS (say that 10 times fast!), is part of the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System’s (PacIOOS) Water Quality Sensor Partnership Program. It records temperature, conductivity (pH), pressure, chlorophyll (amount of phytoplankton in the water), and turbidity (how clear or murky the water is), which are all factors that can affect coral reef health.

PacIOOS provides participating partners with these data in a collaborative effort to increase understanding of how these oceanographic conditions affect the health of coral reefs over time.

To read more about the instrumentation and the reefs of Palmyra Atoll, check out the PacIOOS article here!