Coral reef of Varadero

[1] It lies in the northern limit of the Natural Park Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo, Colombian Caribbean.

[1] The annual water discharge and sediment load of the Canal del Dique has a mean of almost 400 m3 per second and 6 million tons per year, respectively, and as a result the Bay closely resembles an estuarine environment.

[3] The influx of human activity accompanied by the presence of this canal has increased the Bay water’s turbidity, nutrient levels, and sedimentation during last decades, which in turn may have caused acute damage to the coral reefs and seagrass beds in the area.

[1] Reaching more than 3 meters in diameter, many of the massive colonies found in the reef of Varadero belong to the hermatypic coral genus Orbicella.

These areas all provide hope for a variety of reasons: Salvemos Varadero[9] is a citizen initiative created in 2016 in the city of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

Asides from its active presence across social media platforms, the Salvemos Varadero initiative also has its own official song.

Taken by a member of the Mónica Medina Lab at Penn State during a field expedition. Large colonies of coral reside in the coral reef of Varadero despite turbid water conditions.
An Orbicella colony grows in a plate-like morphology to optimize sunlight for its photosynthetic endosymbiont in the coral reef of Varadero.