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"Quantifying coral adaptive capacity under climate change: from a case study in the Galápagos to global projections"
Add to Calendar 2022-09-06T15:30:00 2022-09-06T17:00:00 UTC "Quantifying coral adaptive capacity under climate change: from a case study in the Galápagos to global projections"

Seminar: 11:30am - 12:30pm

W203 Millennium Science Complex
Start DateTue, Sep 06, 2022
11:30 AM
to
End DateTue, Sep 06, 2022
1:00 PM
Presented By
Cheryl Logan

Cheryl Logan, Associate Professor of Marine Environmental Physiology, California State University, Monterey Bay

Event Series:

Title: "Quantifying coral adaptive capacity under climate change: from a case study in the Galápagos to global projections"

Abstract: Incorporating species’ ability to adaptively respond to climate change is critical for robustly predicting persistence and identifying mitigation strategies. In the Galápagos, 95-97% of corals were bleached and killed in the 1982-83 El Niño event, representing a region with an extended bleaching history and a useful analog for future reefs worldwide under climate change. Some Galápagos coral communities have shown signs of recovery and persistence through more recent ENSO events. These corals may be uniquely thermally resistant, derived from heat tolerant survivors and/or new recruits. We surveyed coral thermal tolerance across the archipelago using a portable coral bleaching autonomous stress system, targeting locations where recovery has been strongest. We found that corals from the coolest site (Isabela) were most sensitive to heat stress, whereas corals from the warmest sites (Darwin and Wolf) had the broadest thermal range. I will present Galápagos coral thermal performance data for branching and mounding corals, as well as preliminary results investigating the mechanistic basis of thermal tolerance via coral host gene expression and Symbiodiniaceae composition. I will then discuss how adaptive mechanisms can be incorporated into predictive models using simulations of the adaptive role of algal symbionts in setting coral thermal tolerance under future warming. We find that global patterns in coral reef vulnerability to climate are sensitive to the interaction of warming rate and adaptive capacity and cannot be predicted by either factor alone. Overall, our results show how combining in situ experiments and models of spatially resolved adaptive mechanisms can inform conservation decisions.