Al Lith to Farasan Island, Saudi Arabia, Biodiversity Research Cruise, March 2 to March 12, 2013

Michael Berumen (KAUST), Joseph DiBattista (KAUST), Arthur Anker (NUS), Francesca Benzoni (U Milano), Michel Claereboudt (Sultan Qaboos University), Jessica Bouwmeester (KAUST), Sancia van der Meij (Naturalis Biodiversity Center), Terry Gosliner (CAS), Richard Coleman (HIMB), Noah DesRosiers (KAUST), Luiz Rocha (CAS), Howard Choat (JCU), Gustav Paulay (FLMNH), Patrick Norby (FLMNH), Mark Priest (KAUST), Jean-Paul Hobbs (UWA), Tane Sinclair-Taylor (KAUST)

The first of a series of research cruises funded by a KAUST collaborative research grant (award # CRG-1-2012-BER-002) to catalogue fish and invertebrate (including corals) biodiversity across Saudi Arabian Red Sea reefs aboard the M/V Dream Master. This cruise focused on sampling sites in the Farasan Banks and Farasan Islands, and has produced a rapidly growing, vouchered tissue and specimen collection for these organisms at KAUST and partner institutions.