A $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, announced Jan. 15, includes UCLA Professor Paul Barber as co-principal investigator on a project to conserve coral reefs around Indonesia.
 
Barber, a UCLA professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and affiliated with the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, will work San Diego State University using Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures to measure marine biodiversity in the Coral Triangle. The Coral Triangle contains the world's most biologically diverse coral reefs. Monitoring will provide a clearer idea of the marine organisms living in and around the reefs, increase understanding of how human impacts affect the biodiversity, and lead to better conservation strategies.