According to the information center of national elites foundation, the Iranian national
science foundation announced the support of researchers and technologists of
the Vice-Presidency in line with its long-term goals to receive research
projects on preserving the Persian Gulf. Some of the long-term goals of the
national science foundation include preserving the biodiversity of the Persian
Gulf and informing the public about taking care of them. Therefore, as the
first step, the foundation will support research projects with priorities of
the current condition of these ecosystems, collection of current or new data
and performing ecological research in this area.

In this regard and to establish a coordinated system for
managing research projects in the mentioned three areas, researchers can send
their primary proposal to the email address of persiangulf@insf.org until March 20^th 2018.
During this process, the primary proposals will be evaluated by the referees of
the evaluation council of the foundation and those projects related to the
prioritized areas performed by experienced researchers will be approved to send
their complete proposal for final evaluation.

To learn more about this issue, please refer to the website
of the Iranian national science foundation.

According to this report, in addition to being located in
higher latitudes, the Persian Gulf has low depth and is on the big desert belt.
Therefore, it is exposed to extreme heat and has a high salinity level, which
have turned it into a natural laboratory for evaluation of different ecosystem
reactions to global warming.

Over the past decades, the Persian Gulf and its coastal
ecosystem have been exposed to different forms of severe pollution: river
systems, industrial fishing, coral stone destruction and mangrove forests,
urbanism, the growing
development of shores, the evacuation of domestic and industrial wastes and
agricultural pollution. Coral reefs, mangrove forests and grassland are three
major ecosystems of Persian Gulf. To date, more than 35 coral species have been
recognized near the Iranian islands of the Persian Gulf.