Biology Commons^™

Global Patterns Of Potential Future Plant Diversity Hidden In Soil Seed Banks, Xuejun Yang, Carol C. Baskin, Jerry M. Baskin, Robin J. Pakeman, Zhenying Huang, Ruiru Gao, Johannes H. C. Cornelissen

Biology Faculty Publications

Soil seed banks represent a critical but hidden stock for potential future plant diversity on Earth. Here we compiled and analyzed a global dataset consisting of 15,698 records of species diversity and density for soil seed banks in natural plant communities worldwide to quantify their environmental determinants and global patterns. Random forest models showed that absolute latitude was an important predictor for diversity of soil seed banks. Further, climate and soil were the major determinants of seed bank diversity, while net primary productivity and soil characteristics were the main predictors of seed bank density. Moreover, global mapping revealed clear spatial …

Diversity Of The Fanged-Frog Complex, Limnonectes Kuhlii (Anura: Dicroglossidae) On The Mountainous Regions Of Java And Sumatra, Indonesia, Thornton Robert Larson

Biology Dissertations - Archive

The cryptic species complex, Limnonectes kuhlii, previously was considered to have a large range across Southeast Asia. Recent works have started to identify species within the complex using primarily genetic methodologies. The largest absence in elucidating these relationships comes down to sampling. Traditionally sampling across Southeast Asia has been challenging, limiting sampling across the entirety of a species range. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Indonesia. Indonesia has been highlighted as a biogeographical hotspot for species despite limited sampling on any of the main or smaller islands across the archipelago. Countries such as Malaysia and Papua New Guinea that …

Algal Biodiversity Survey Of The Middle Chattahoochee River Using Dna Metabarcoding, Amanda Howell

Theses and Dissertations

Aquatic plants play vital roles in water systems by providing ecological services, and one group that is understudied is algae. Algae play a crucial role in water systems as bioindicators and primary producers. They can be challenging to identify with the naked eye, so researchers have been using DNA metabarcoding, where DNA belonging to specific taxa can be isolated and identified from water samples. The objective of this study was to conduct an algal biodiversity survey on the middle Chattahoochee River system in Georgia. Water samples (1L) were filtered and sent to RTL Genomics for sequencing and processing; the data …

Aridity-Driven Shift In Biodiversity-Soil Multifunctionality Relationships, Weigang Hu, Jinzhi Ran, Longwei Dong, Qiajun Du, Mingfei Ji, Shuran Yao, Chen Hou, For Full List Of Authors, Download The Pdf.

Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works

Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Both plant and soil microbial diversity have been reported to regulate ecosystem multifunctionality, but how their relative importance varies along environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Here, we relate plant and microbial diversity to soil multifunctionality across 130 dryland sites along a 4,000 km aridity gradient in northern China. Our results show a strong positive association between plant species richness and soil multifunctionality in less arid regions, whereas microbial diversity, in particular of fungi, is positively associated with multifunctionality in more arid regions. This shift in the relationships …

Effects Of Patch Size, Fragmentation, And Invasive Species On Plant And Lepidoptera Communities In Southern Texas, James A. Stilley, Christopher A. Gabler

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Simple Summary

Human land use has removed habitats, separated habitats into small and disconnected fragments, and introduced foreign species, which all harm wildlife. South Texas is highly diverse and home to many endangered species, but human disturbance threatens its wildlife. In south Texas, we poorly understand how different aspects of human land use influence wildlife diversity and abundance. We studied this by surveying plants and butterflies in 24 habitat fragments in south Texas that differed in size, shape, type, and land use history. Human disturbance was extensive, and foreign and weedy species were dominant in most habitats. Habitat types had …

Of Biodiversity, Boundaries, And Distribution: The Myxomycetes Of The Philippines And Beyond, Sittie Aisha Bustamante Macabago

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains a compilation of independently performed studies primarily focusing on the myxomycetes (plasmodial slime molds) from the Philippines and integrating local and worldwide data to demonstrate regional and global trends. The major themes include the following: (I) a review of the diverse group of spore-producing amoeboid protists, including the myxomycetes; (II-IV) diversity assessments in three different groups of islands in the Philippine archipelago; (V) mapping the myxomycetes found in the Philippines for databasing and analyzing the geocoded data; (VI) a study on regional boundaries, including the Philippines, using myxomycete species composition; and, (VII) creating a global species distribution …

Examining The Presence Of A Possible Species Complex Of Octopus Joubini (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Holloway

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Pygmy Octopus Octopus joubini (Robson, 1929) is a small, shallow water species found throughout the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), western Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern Caribbean Sea (Mather, 1982; Jereb & Roper, 2014; Judkins, 2009). This species is believed to belong to a complex based upon morphological features including arm length, web depth, sucker size, egg size, hatchling ecology, and chromatophore coloration. It has been proposed that Octopus mercatoris, another pygmy species found in the GoM, may belong in this complex; however, no analyses have been performed to verify this claim. The present study incorporated morphological comparisons with …

Impacts Of Detritivore Diversity Loss On Instream Decomposition Are Greatest In The Tropics, Luz Boyero, Naiara López-Rojo, Alan M. Tonin, Javier Pérez, Francisco Correa-Araneda, Richard G. Pearson, Jaime Bosch, Ricardo J. Albariño, Sankarappan Anbalagan, Leon A. Barmuta, Ana Basaguren, Francis J. Burdon, Adriano Caliman, Marcos Callisto, Ian C. Campbell, Bradley J. Cardinale, J. Jesús Casas, Ana M. Chará-Serna, Eric Chauvet, Szymon Ciapała, Jose Checo Colón-Gaud, Aydeé Cornejo, Aaron M. Davis, Monika Degebrodt, Emerson S. Dias, María E. Díaz, Michael M. Douglas, Andrea C. Encalada, Ricardo Figueroa, Alexander S. Flecker, Tadeusz Fleituch, Erica A. García, Gabriela García, Pavel E. García, Mark O. Gessner, Jesús E. Gómez, Sergio Gómez, Jose F. Gonçalves Jr, Manuel A. S. Graça, Daniel C. Gwinn, Robert O. Hall Jr., Neusa Hamada, Cang Hui, Daichi Imazawa, Tomoya Iwata, Samuel K. Kariuki, Andrea Landeira-Dabarca, Kelsey A. Laymon, María Leal, Richard Marchant, Renato T. Martins, Frank O. Masese, Megan Maul, Brendan G. Mckie, Adriana O. Medeiros, Charles M. M’ Erimba, Jen A. Middleton, Silvia Monroy, Timo Muotka, Junjiro N. Negishi, Alonso Ramírez, John S. Richardson, José Rincón, Juan Rubio-Ríos, Gisele M. Dos Santos, Romain Sarremejane, Fran Sheldon, Augustine Sitati, Nathalie S. D. Tenkiano, Scott D. Tiegs, Janine R. Tolod, Michael Venarsky, Anne Watson, Catherine M. Yule

Biology: Faculty Publications

The relationship between detritivore diversity and decomposition can provide information on how biogeochemical cycles are affected by ongoing rates of extinction, but such evidence has come mostly from local studies and microcosm experiments. We conducted a globally distributed experiment (38 streams across 23 countries in 6 continents) using standardised methods to test the hypothesis that detritivore diversity enhances litter decomposition in streams, to establish the role of other characteristics of detritivore assemblages (abundance, biomass and body size), and to determine how patterns vary across realms, biomes and climates. We observed a positive relationship between diversity and decomposition, strongest in tropical …

Unifying Community Detection Across Scales From Genomes To Landscapes, Stephanie F. Hudon, Andrii Zaiats, Anna Roser, Anand Roopsind, Cristina Barber, Brecken Robb, Britt Pendleton, Merry M. Davidson, Jonas Frankel-Bricker, Marcella Fremgen-Tarantino, Jennifer Sorensen Forbey, Eric Hayden, Olivia K. Rodriguez, T. Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Biodiversity science encompasses multiple disciplines and biological scales from molecules to landscapes. Nevertheless, biodiversity data are often analyzed separately with discipline-specific methodologies, constraining resulting inferences to a single scale. To overcome this, we present a topic modeling framework to analyze community composition in cross-disciplinary datasets, including those generated from metagenomics, metabolomics, field ecology and remote sensing. Using topic models, we demonstrate how community detection in different datasets can inform the conservation of interacting plants and herbivores. We show how topic models can identify members of molecular, organismal and landscape-level communities that relate to wildlife health, from gut microbes to forage …

The Big Picture: Consolidating National Government And Cites Records Of Animal Trade In The Philippines From 1975 To 2019, Ronald Allan L. Cruz, Catherine Genevieve B. Lagunzad

Biology Faculty Publications

The Philippines has exceptionally high biodiversity but is also a hotspot. It is a recognized source; destination; and transit point for the global wildlife trade; which drives biodiversity loss. There is an abundance of data from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on the Philippines; but this data has not been assessed for historical trends. Confiscation data reflecting the illegal trade is scarcer; coming from recent (2008 onward) records of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ___ Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB) and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD). CITES data …

A Baseline Documentation Report For The Delta Wind Birds Sky Lake Nature Reserve, Preston T. Perkins, J Hays Dubberly, Michael J. Thomas, Jensine Coggin

Honors Theses

The purpose of this baseline documentation is to conduct a report on our subject property and discuss the findings. A conservation easement is established by upholding a certain standard of a property’s current condition which makes a baseline documentation necessary for an easement to be enacted. Baseline documentation reports are used as a resource to monitor and enforce the legal agreements of the conservation easement. The subject property is currently owned by the Delta Wind Birds organization. In our scenario, this documentation report will serve to aid in the conversion of our subject property into a conservation easement in which …

The Dual Nature Of Metacommunity Variability, Thomas Lamy, Nathan I. Wisnoski, Riley Andrade, Max C. N. Castorani, Aldo Compagnoni, Nina Lany, Luca Marazzi, Sydne Record, Christopher M. Swan, Jonathan D. Tonkin, Nicole Voelker, Shaopeng Wang, Phoebe L. Zarnetske, Eric R. Sokol

Biology Faculty Research and Scholarship

There is increasing interest in measuring ecological stability to understand how communities and ecosystems respond to broad-scale global changes. One of the most common approaches is to quantify the variation through time in community or ecosystem aggregate attributes (e.g. total biomass), referred to as aggregate variability. It is now widely recognized that aggregate variability represents only one aspect of communities and ecosystems, and compositional variability, the changes in the relative frequency of species in an assemblage, is equally important. Recent contributions have also begun to explore ecological stability at regional spatial scales, where interconnected local communities form metacommunities, a key …

The Crazy Critter Club - Lesson Plans, Caitlin Flynn Copenhaver, Audrey Anderson

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

This curriculum covers the lesson plans for the 2021 "Cool Critter Club". It is focused on teaching students about animals and the environment, especially at a local level. This club engages students through the use of games, art, and spending time outside.

Dung Beetle (Scarabaeinae) Diversity Of The Highest Elevation In West Africa: The Nimba Mountain Range, Jacob Bowen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The Nimba Mountain Range in Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Liberia is within the Upper Guinean Forests, a critical biodiversity hotspot highly threatened by various human activities. The region is home to many endemic species including the viviparous Nimba toad, Nimba otter-shrew, and the discrete Bossou chimpanzee population. Dung beetles can act as a focal taxon from which extrapolation to the diversity of other taxa and ecosystem health can be made. Elevational trends in dung beetle diversity were investigated on the Nimba Mountain Range and in the nearby Bossou Chimpanzee reserve in Guinea. Dung beetle species diversity surveys aimed to document …

Rapid Survey Of Anuran Species In Baguio-Benguet Area And Isolation Of Their Fungal Symbionts, Arthien Lovell P. Pelingen, Camille Andrea Flores, Axel John Briz, Roland Hipol, Celia Austria

Biology Faculty Publications

Baguio City is one of the fastest-growing centers of urbanization in the Philippines. As part of the Cordillera Mountain Range, it is a biodiversity hotspot that is largely unexplored. This study is a preliminary investigation using visual encounter surveys of anuran species in various localities of the Baguio-Benguet area (BBA). These include Loakan Airport (LA), Camp John Hay (CJH), and Soroptimist Compound (SC) at the Military Cut Off, all in Baguio; Nangalisan, Tuba (NT), Benguet; and Master’s Garden (MG) at Puguis, La Trinidad, Benguet. We documented three Luzon-endemic species of frogs – namely, Kaloula rigida (Family Microhylidae), Sanguirana luzonensis (Family …

Effects Of Salt Runoff On Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Colonies, Kendra Fink

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Aquatic macroinvertebrates bridge the gap in part between primary and secondary consumers, making them ecologically important for most aquatic systems. They are used as biotic indicators for water quality due to their sensitivity to pollutants and may be affected, specifically, by chloride ion concentrations in the water. Water quality can be evaluated by looking at species compositions and their respective tolerance values. To determine long-term effects of road salt on macroinvertebrate colonies, a total of 338 identified macroinvertebrates of 10 families (two generalized to class) at 9 sites were collected from before, after, and between three bridges on Turtle River …

Novel Insights To Be Gained From Applying Metacommunity Theory To Long-Term, Spatially Replicated Biodiversity Data, Sydne Record, Nicole M. Voelker, Phoebe L. Zarnetske, Nathan I. Wisnoski, Jonathan D. Tonkin, Christopher Swan, Luca Marazzi, Nina Lany, Thomas Lamy, Ado Compagnoni, Max C. N. Castorani, Riley Andrade, Eric R. Sokol

Biology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Global loss of biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services is occurring at an alarming rate and is predicted to accelerate in the future. Metacommunity theory provides a framework to investigate multi-scale processes that drive change in biodiversity across space and time. Short-term ecological studies across space have progressed our understanding of biodiversity through a metacommunity lens, however, such snapshots in time have been limited in their ability to explain which processes, at which scales, generate observed spatial patterns. Temporal dynamics of metacommunities have been understudied, and large gaps in theory and empirical data have hindered progress in our understanding of …

Lepidopteran Granivory Reduces Seed Counts In A Rare Species Of Riparian Scour Prairies, Cheyenne Moore, Angela J. Mcdonnell, Scott Schuette, Christopher T. Martine

Faculty Journal Articles

In Pennsylvania Baptisia australis var. australis is found along only four waterways: the Allegheny River, Youghiogheny River, Clarion River, and Red Bank Creek. Because of its limited distribution and small number of extant populations, the species is considered state-threatened in Pennsylvania. In addition, the riparian prairie habitat that Pennsylvania Baptisia australis var. australis is restricted to is also in decline and considered vulnerable. Because of these conservation concerns, insights into the natural history of the taxon in the state is valuable and will inform conservation efforts. Field surveys and fruit collections along the Allegheny River and herbarium collections were used …

Factors Influencing Aquatic Invertebrate Diversity In Mine Pit Lakes Along The Mesabi Iron Range, Jeremy Laurich

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Restoration of mine pit lakes for recreation is going to be very important for the future of Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range area. As many as 250 lakes will need to be restored in the future along this 100-kilometer-long swath of mining country. Information regarding the organisms that currently inhabit these lakes is important for future restorations to be a success. The focus of this study was to identify the types of aquatic invertebrates present in pit lakes and to identify some of the factors that influence their abundance and diversity. During this study, invertebrate samples were taken along the shore …

Effectiveness Of Endothall Treatment In Reducing Potamogeton Crispus In Lake Julia, Jake Sorensen

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Curly leaf pondweed Potamogeton crispus, is a submerged aquatic plant non-native to North America. It was most likely introduced when common carp Cyprinus carpio were intentionally brought to the Midwest. Endothall is an aquatic herbicide commonly used to control curlyleaf pondweed in lakes. This study focused on collecting data from Lake Julia in Sherburne County, MN. Lake Julia is treated annually in the spring to control curlyleaf pondweed. The results show treatment areas saw a significant increase in vegetation density compared to control areas (P < 0.01). Changes in percent vegetation coverage by date were insignificant (P = 0.24). No significant signs of fish kills were observed. Because this study looked at overall vegetation coverage instead of specifically curlyleaf pondweed, we cannot conclude the increase in vegetation coverage was from curlyleaf pondweed alone. Based on the results from Poovey et al. (2002) we would expect lower vegetation coverage in treatment areas instead of the increased vegetation coverage observed in our study. This suggests the possibility that the endothall treatment successfully killed curlyleaf pondweed in treated areas, which allowed for new growth of submerged aquatic plants to take place as water temperatures increased.

Rivfishtime: A Global Database Of Fish Time-Series As A Currency For Global Change Ecology Research In Riverine Systems, Lise Comte, Juan Carvajal-Quintero, Pablo A. Tedesco, Ulrich Brose, Tibor Erős, Ana F. Filipe, Marie-Josée Fortin, Katie Irving, Claire Jacquet, Christopher M. Taylor

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Motivation

We compiled a global database of long-term riverine fish surveys from 46 regional and national monitoring programmes and from individual academic research efforts, with which numerous basic and applied questions in ecology and global change research can be explored. Such spatially and temporally extensive datasets have been lacking for freshwater systems in comparison to terrestrial ones.

Main types of variables contained

The database includes 11,386 time-series of riverine fish community catch data, including 646,270 species-specific abundance records, together with metadata related to the geographical location and sampling methodology of each time-series.

Spatial location and grain

The database contains 11,072 …

Contributions To The Knowledge Of Water Bugs In Mindoro Island, Philippines, With A Species Checklist Of Nepomorpha And Gerromorpha (Insecta, Hemiptera, Heteroptera), Arthien Lovell Pelingen, Herbert Zettel, Clister V. Pangantihon, Kyra Mari Dominique Aldaba, Earl Kevin Fatallo, Jemillie Madonna De Leon, Hendrik Freitag

Biology Faculty Publications

This survey aims to provide an updated species checklist of aquatic and semi-aquatic bugs in the intra-Philippine biogeographic Region of Mindoro. An assessment survey of water bugs (Hemiptera, Heteroptera) was conducted mostly by manual collection in selected areas of Oriental Mindoro from 2017 to 2018, in which some of the collecting activities were undertaken by graduate students of Ateneo de Manila University. Twenty-nine aquatic and semi-aquatic heteropteran species were documented and some are known island-endemic species or subspecies, including Enithares martini mindoroensis Nieser & Zettel, 1999, Hydrotrephes stereoides mindoroensis Zettel, 2003, Aphelocheirus freitagi Zettel & Pangantihon, 2010, Rhagovelia mindoroensis Zettel, …

Groundwater Quality In Two Semi-Arid Areas Of Algeria: Impact Of Water Pollution On Biodiversity, Redjaimia Lylia, Hadjab Ramzi, Khammar Hichem, Merzoug Djemoi, Saheb Menouar

Journal of Bioresource Management

The biodiversity and quality of subterranean waters were comparatively studied in the Tarf plain near Oum-El-Bouaghi and in the Ksar S’bahi in Oum-El-Bouaghi, in North-eastern Algeria. For this purpose, physicochemical and faunistic analyses were carried out on the water of ten stations located in the area of Tarf, and thirteen in the area of S’bahi. In the wells of Tarf, the average stygobiologic diversity was relatively high in the wells located upstream the dumping site from the city where the groundwater presented low contents of nitrates and orthophosphates. In contrast, the wells located in the spreading zone of Tarf wastewaters …

Stream Biodiversity And Co-Occurrence Network Topology Along Sub-Continental To Global Nutrient And Land Use Gradients, William Robert Budnick

Biology Dissertations - Archive

Freshwaters are some of the most vulnerable ecosystems to global change forces, such as land use and eutrophication, implicated in the loss of biodiversity and biotic homogenization (increased similarity) of species communities. However, much less is known about the impact of these forces on the mechanisms underlying biodiversity and the patterns of species co-occurrence. In this dissertation, I use sub-continental to global stream community datasets to investigate the effects of land use and nutrients on algal, macroinvertebrate, and fish biodiversity, abundance, and complexity of co-occurrence patterns to pursue three objectives. I first investigate how agriculture contributes to biotic homogenization, and …

Investigating The Direct And Indirect Effects Of Forest Fragmentation On Plant Functional Diversity, Jenny Zambrano, Norbert J. Cordeiro, Carol Garzon-Lopez, Lauren Yeager, Claire Fortunel, Henry J. Ndangalasi, Noelle G. Beckman

Biology Faculty Publications

Ongoing habitat loss and fragmentation alter the functional diversity of forests. Generalising the magnitude of change in functional diversity of fragmented landscapes and its drivers is challenging because of the multiple scales at which landscape fragmentation takes place. Here we propose a multi-scale approach to determine whether fragmentation processes at the local and landscape scales are reducing functional diversity of trees in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. We employ a structural equation modelling approach using five key plant traits (seed length, dispersal mode, shade tolerance, maximum tree height, and wood density) to better understand the functional responses of trees to …

The More We Do, The Less We Gain? Balancing Effort And Efficacy In Managing The Solidago Gigantea Invasion, Dávid U. Nagy, Emily S.J. Rauschert, Tamás Henn, Kevin Cianfaglione, Szilvia Stranczinger, Robert W. Pal

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

Developing invasive plant management strategies is an important task in modern ecology, conservation biology and land management. Solidago gigantea is considered a problematic invader in Europe and Asia, where it forms dominant stands that can decrease species diversity. There is, therefore, an urgent need for effective management to reduce S. gigantea infestations and their negative impacts. We examined the efficacy of multiple approaches to S. gigantea management in Hungary. In our study, we evaluated the effect of several long-term management techniques such as grazing, mowing and periodic flooding on the invader's density as well as native community diversity. In addition, …

A Reexamination Of The Freshwater Mussel Community Of The Little Miami River, Emily Davis

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Understanding the changes in biodiversity and local freshwater mussel populations is critical to mitigate the risks to these populations. Freshwater ecosystems continue to degrade rapidly. The freshwater mussel community of the Little Miami River is degraded and has been in decline for many years. The biodiversity contained within freshwater ecosystems is lost at unprecedented rates influenced by human activity. Freshwater mussels play a key role in understanding the effects of human activity on freshwater ecosystems as well as maintaining the health of freshwater habitats. However, they are also sensitive to changes and disturbances, in their ecosystems. This study involved monitoring …

Diatom Voucher Flora And Comparison Of Collection Methods For Biodiversity Hotspot Upper Three Runs Creek, Katie M. Johnson

Biology Theses

Surface freshwater is a scarce resource. Due to the scarcity and necessity of this resource, it is imperative that its quality is routinely monitored. One way of monitoring water quality is through biological assessments, which include examining algal assemblages. Regionally, little remains known of algal taxa in the southeastern United States. In the past, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) conducted biological assessments along the Savannah River finding Gomphonema parvulum (Kützing) Kützing 1849 to be a dominant taxon rendering assessments inconclusive. Recent studies have provided evidence that species complexes and semi-cryptic taxa have been identified within the Gomphonema …

Temperate Eurasian Origins Of Hawaiian Chenopodium (Amaranthaceae) Plus Description Of A New Species Endemic To Moloka‘I, Jason T. Cantley, Angela J. Mcdonnell, J Branson, S R. Long, W Garnett, Christopher T. Martine

Faculty Journal Articles

Chenopodium taxa of Hawai‘i are tetraploids distinguished from other members of the circumglobally distributed genus by minute morphological characters. Because of these reasons, the geographic origin of Hawaiian Chenopodium has remained unclear. Across the Hawaiian Archipelago, Chenopodium taxa are morphologically variable and grow in highly disparate xeric habitats, especially in terms of precipitation, temperature, wind, salt spray, and solar irradiation. Habitats include dry subalpine shrublands, sandy beach strand of atolls in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, dry forests, and precipitously tall sea cliffs of northwestern Moloka‘i. From the Moloka‘i sea cliffs, which are battered by high energy winds, salt spray, and …

Science, Diplomacy, And The Red Sea's Unique Coral Reef: It's Time For Action, Karine Kleinhaus, Ali Al-Sawalmih, Daniel J. Barshis, Amatzia Genin, Lola N. Grace, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Yossi Loya, Anders Meiborn, Eslam O. Osman, Jean-Daniel Ruch, Yonathan Shaked, Christian R. Voolstra, Assaf Zvuloni, Maoz Fine

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Rapid ocean warming due to climate change poses a serious risk to the survival of coral reefs. It is estimated that 70–90 percent of all reefs will be severely degraded by mid-century even if the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Climate Agreement is achieved. However, one coral reef ecosystem seems to be more resilient to rising sea temperatures than most others. The Red Sea’s reef ecosystem is one of the longest continuous living reefs in the world, and its northernmost portion extends into the Gulf of Aqaba. The scleractinian corals in the Gulf have an unusually high tolerance for the …