Persisting In The Face Of Disturbances

Resilience is the capacity of communities of animals and plants to resist disturbance and recover following the disturbance. Understanding what allows communities to persist in the face of disturbance is key to managing these systems so that they can continue to provide their benefits to society in the form of human health, prosperity, and beauty. Almost no other ecological system on Earth is as diverse, beautiful, and fragile, as coral reefs. They are at the leading edge of degradation from disturbance and many are predicting no true coral reefs may exist by 2100 in the face of global warming. Still, after thermal disturbances known as marine heat waves some coral reef communities have shown the ability to resist and recover from disturbance. Understanding why these communities persist while others do not will allow us to focus precious management resources on the things that will provide the best shot at keeping coral reefs vibrant and healthy until such a time that humanity can learn to limit our own sets of disturbances.

Managing Coral Reef Communities

This research aims to determine the key attributes of coral reef communities of the US Virgin Islands that favor resistance and recovery from disturbance.  This will allow us to focus management on specifically the key attributes that favor higher resilience, such as diversity, connectivity, refuges, and herbivory.  We have amassed a collection of over 40 long-term ecological data sets from coral reefs of the USVI across most habitats and depths. These data sets are the culmination of many years of efforts by federal and territorial researchers to understand key processes affecting marine biological systems.  In particular, EPSCoR funded efforts to increase the capacity of in–water research, such as investments in the USVI marine science facilities and technical diving, and of physical oceanography research, such as instrument array deployment and current and wave modeling, have allowed us to build one of the best integrated pictures of the coral ecosystems and their drivers in the world. In fact, the very reason that this research can be attempted now is because of these early investments.