Water storage in underground rock formations is an important source of water for land-based ecosystems — but groundwater also flows into coastal marine waters, providing inputs of both freshwater and nutrients. New funding from the National Science Foundation will help CSUN Assistant Professor of Biology Nyssa Silbiger start to understand how such "submarine groundwater" contributes to the health of coral reefs.
The new grant, totaling $1.2 million dollars over three years, supports work by Silbiger and collaborators Craig Nelson at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Megan Donahue at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, as well as hydrologists from CSU Long Beach. The portion of the funding going to CSUN, more than $800,000, will support undergraduate and graduate students in experimental work on campus and field projects at an established coral reef field site in Mo’orea, French Polynesia.
Image: Silbiger (left) and collaborators float equipment to a study site in Mo’orea (Photo via Nyssa Silbiger)