Acknowledgements

Line divider

Information

Numerous colleagues have been very generous in providing unpublished data, regional taxonomic information and references. With apologies to many we particularly thank Gerry Allen, Rohan Arthur, Hayley Bawden, Francesca Benzoni, Chuck Birkeland, Héctor Reyes Bonilla, Ann Budd, Dave Burdick, Steve Cairns, Nandini Ray Chaudhury, Allen Chen, Michael Claereboudt, Jorge Cortés, Mark Erdmann, Gerard Faure, Daphne Fautin, Joshua Feingold, Doug Fenner, Wendy Foden, Mike Fox, Zac Forsman, James Gilmour, Peter Glynn, Peter Harrison, Andrew Heyward, Bert Hoeksema, Peter Houk, Russell Kelley, Wolfgang Kiessling, Rob Lanceley, Yuri Latypov, Eric Lazo-Wasem, Al Licuanan, Ed Lovell, Jim Maragos, Denise McCorry, Moritaka Nishihira, David Obura, Gustav Paulay, Dick Randall, Zoe Richards, Sebastian Schmidt-Roach, Charles Sheppard, Julian Sprung, Krishnamoorthy Venkataraman, Mark Vermeij, Carden Wallace, Rob van Woesik and Ernesto Weil. This project has been very fortunate to have had so much support from coral experts around the world.

Text divider

Fieldwork

More people have given time to logistic support than we can record, but special thanks are due to Rupert Ormond, Michael Pearson and the staff of the Ras Mohammed National Park, the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development in Saudi Arabia, Virginie Tiliot and Alain Jeudy of the Eritrea Coastal Marine Biodiversity Program, Catherine Cheung, Malik Abdul-Aziz and the UNDP Socotra Biodiversity Project in Yemen, Ron Johnson and Sibylle Riedmiller in Tanzania, Pierre Vasseur in Madagascar, Alec Dawson Shepherd and John Collie in the Seychelles, Suki Ekartane in Sri Lanka, Gregor Hodgson, Vo Si Tuan and the Nha Trang Institute of Oceanology, IUCN and WWF in Vietnam, Gregor Hodgson, Ed Gomez, Al Licuanan and many other colleagues in the Philippines, Hasnah Ibrahim and Department of Fisheries in Brunei Darussalam, Denise McCorry, Alan Chen and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department in Hong Kong, Moritaka Nishihira and many other colleagues in Japan, Tim Werner in Papua New Guinea, Suharsono and the Indonesian Ministry of Sciences, Chris Paporakis, Michael Cortenbach and many other colleagues in Indonesia and Ed Lovell in Fiji. Of course we give special thanks to unsung heroes of the Coral Triangle expeditions: in particular Alison Green and Rod Salm of The Nature Conservancy and Sheila McKenna and Mark Erdmann of Conservation International. Fieldwork on the Great Barrier Reef was supported by James Cook University, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and the University of Queensland, and most ecoregions of Western Australia including remote reefs and atolls by the Western Australian Museum. We thank Julian Sprung for organising fieldwork in the Bahamas, marine stations in the Caribbean by the Smithsonian and other institutions, and Ricardo Miozzo and the Brazil Coral Reef Society for work at the Abrolhos Islands. In addition, many expeditions around the world have been organised and funded by individuals, small organisations and marine stations.

Text divider

Institutions

We thank the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia for supporting Charlie Veron’s studies of coral over a time that goes back to the very origins of our work as well as the Institute itself.

Institutional support has been extensive and we thank all curators that facilitated access to collections. These included the British Museum (Natural History); Department of Zoology, University of Glasgow; University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge; Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie; Zoological Museum, Amsterdam; Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Station Marine d’Endoume, Marseille; Universitets Zoologiske Museum, Copenhagen; Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt; Museum fϋr Naturkunde der Humboldt Universitat, Berlin; University of Tel Aviv; Phuket Marine Biological Centre, Thailand; University of Singapore; Hong Kong University; University of the Philippines, Manilla; Marine Science Institute of the Philippines, Quezon City; Bolinao Marine Laboratory, the University of San Carlos; Siliman University; Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Tohoku University; University of the Ryukyus; Iriomote Marine Research Centre of Tokai University; Sesoko Marine Science Centre; Biology Department, University of the Ryukyus; ETMER, Akajima; Amakusa Marine Biological Laboratory of Kyushu University; Seto Marine Biological Laboratory of Kyoto University; Yaeyama Marine Park Research Station, Shirahama; Sabiura Marine Park Research Station, Kushimoto; Shimoda Marine Research Centre, University of Tsukuba; University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa; Banda Marine Laboratory, Tokyo University of Fisheries; Amitori Research Centre, Iriomote Island, Western Australian Museum; Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin; South Australian Museum; Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville; the Queensland Museum; Queensland University; Australian Museum; Motupore Research Centre, Papua New Guinea; University of Papua New Guinea; University of the South Pacific, Fiji; Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu; United States National Museum; Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; Yale Peabody Museum, New Haven; Cornell University, Ithaca; The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami; Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, Jamaica; Glover’s Reef Marine Station, Belize and Bellair’s Research Institute of McGill University, Barbados.

Text divider

Photographs and drawings

We are enormously grateful for the tens of thousands of photographs and drawings that have not only been used to illustrate corals but also to compile distribution records. At the risk of omissions we thank Gerry Allen, Fernanda Amaral, Charles Arneson, Pat Baker, Eulaila Banguera, John Barnett, Isobel Bennett, Francesca Benzoni, Chuck Birkeland, Viktor Brandternis (RSMAS), Tom Bridge, James Brown, Clay Bryce (WAM), Ann Budd, Steve Cairns (USNM), Yaoyang Chuang, Michel Claereboudt, Neville Coleman, Steve Coles, Pat Colin, Jorge Cortés, Chang-Feng Dai, Nandini Ray Chudhury, Tim Coffert, Jorge Cortes, Hans Ditlev, Terry Done, Mark Erdmann, Joshua Feingold, Doug Fenner, Maoz Fine, Dave Fisk, Camilla Floros, Zac Forsman, Yogi Freund, Peter Glynn, Dan Gotshall, Brett Harris, Peter Harrison, Bert Hoeksema, Nigel Holmes, Mia Hoogenboom, John Hoover, Markus Huettel, Paul Humann, Cindy Hunter, Barry Hutchins, Akiyuki Irikawa, Peter Isdale, Carlos Jiminez, Michelle Jonker, Richard Keech, Russell Kelley, Geoff Kelly, Jerry Kemp, Nancy Knowlton, Kevin Kohen, William Kolvoort, Jacques Laborel, Rob Lanceley, Yuri Latypov, Rachel Levin, Wilfredo Licuanan, Kyllderes Lima, Ed Lovell, Kat Luzon, Jim Maragos, Juan Maté, Karen Miller, Chi-Min Hsu, Tamal Mondal, Wendy Morris, Moritaka Nishihira, Jamie Nivia-Ruiz, Masanori Nonaka, David Obura, Takeshi Okamoto, Gustav Paulay, David Paz-Garcia, Rachel Pears, Sabine Penisson, Gopinadha Pillai, Georg Scheer, Corey Pittman, Don Potts, Wes Pratt, Maggie Reilly (U. Glasgow), Bernhard Riegl, Luiz Rocha, Joe Russo, Gopinadah Pillai, Dr Sawall, Georg Scheer, Michael Schleyer, Sebastian Schmidt-Roach, Nancy Sefton, Charles Sheppard, Tineke Smit, Jenifer Smith, Dr Al-Sofyani, Julian Sprung, Roger Steene, Keoki Stender, Brian Stockwell, Valerie Taylor, Mark Vermeij, Yolanda Villacampa (USNM), William Walsh, Ernesto Weil, Tim Werner, Bette Willis, Barry Wilson, Peter Wirtz, Elizabeth Wood, Phil Woodhead, Kirsten Wortell, Kazuhika Yanagiya, Robert Yin, Hiroyuki Yokochi, Len Zell

Text divider

Website development

This website was designed and coordinated by Mary Stafford-Smith in conjunction with Gaia Resources Pty Ltd whose expertise and ongoing support we gratefully acknowledge. We thank Piers Higgs, Tony Prior, Ben Khoo, Andrew Dennison, Anthony Jones, Kehan Harman, and Mel McVee of Gaia Resources for perservering with the complex tasks they undertook to make this website become a reality. Many thanks also to Danny Poole for his web development expertise. Websites take a lot of testing; in particular we thank Ann Cabot for her help, and many other alpha and beta testers for invaluable feedback.

Text divider

Data compilation, support, design and artwork

We thank Stuart Kininmonth, Claudia Milbredt and Tom Bridge for their work in building prototype maps and Rohan Brooker, Nathan Morris, Susannah Leahy, Eviie Veron, Louise Garth and Boa Bao for assistance with data preparation and analysis. Special thanks to Fiona Alongi for assistance with design and drawings over many years.

Text divider

Financial support and promotion

Corals of the World and its component tools have been in ongoing development for several decades and in that time we have had support financially and in kind by many organisations and individuals as listed above and we thank them all.

The current website project has balanced on the brink of insolvency for most of its existence, so we have been particularly grateful to those who have come to our rescue. Our special thanks go to Wolcott Henry, Kenton Campbell of Zaffarra’s Foundation, Shannon and Bill Joy, The Ocean Foundation, Google Earth, Atlas of Living Australia, Odyssey Publishing (thanks to the late John Jackson), Marshall Meyers and James Lynch of PIJAC, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council of NOAA, Piers Higgs of Gaia Resources, and the Australian Research Council.

We give heartfelt thanks to Dave Hannan for supporting this project in so many ways right from the beginning both personally and as the CEO of Ocean Ark Alliance. We thank his many friends and associates including Mike Balson, Simon Marsh, Guy Morel and Pete Simon.

We have been fortunate to have had the advice of two very clever people, Angel Braestrup and Marc Burdick. We also thank Mark Spalding of The Ocean Foundation and Sylvia Earle.

Finally, we have had extraordinary testimonials from our colleagues in support of this project. They know who they are and we are grateful to them.

Line divider