Red Sea Biodiversity Project

The Biodiversity of the Red Sea to a big part is unexplored. Therefore, Senckenberg Research Institute (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) and King Abdulaziz University (KAU, Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia) founded a joint research project in spring 2011 in order to investigate the Biodiversity of the Red Sea coast of Saudi-Arabia. Hence, all marine animal groups in vast parts of the east coast of the Red Sea were sampled on three big and one smaller expedition with different collection methods in the years 2011-14. The samples were preserved and sent to the department of Marine Biology at Senckenberg, Frankfurt in order to determine the collected animals to species level and to describe the unknown in close collaboration with KAU. Today, 775 species have been identified and 26 publications in peer-reviewed journals have been published, describing among others two worldwide new genera and 19 species, as well as 13 species being new to the Red Sea. Next milestones are an expedition to the deep sea of the northern Red Sea, the organization of a public exhibition at Jeddah and the production of an online field guide in order to facilitate the Red Sea species determination. In order to comply with the Nagoya-Regulations, all taken DNA samples, as well as the animal samples are stored at Senckenberg and KAU and can be shared with third parties upon justified request.