[Coral-List] Call for abstracts on coral reefs and environmental/climatic change at ASLO 2011 (Puerto Rico)
Andrea Grottoli
grottoli.1 at osu.edu
Thu Aug 19 13:38:56 EDT 2010
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS ON CORAL REEFS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL / CLIMATIC CHANGE AT ASLO 2011 (PUERTO RICO)
The 2011 Aquatic Sciences Meeting for the
American Society for Limnology & oceanography
(ASLO) will take place in Puerto Rico next
February (13-18 February 2011) and focus on
limnology and oceanography in a changing world
(<http://www.aslo.org/meetings/sanjuan2011>www.aslo.org/meetings/sanjuan2011).
As part of 6 sessions proposed on corals and
coral reefs, two will be dedicated to coral reefs
and environmental/climatic change (S31 and S36,
described in more detail below). Together these
two sessions aim to explore the most recent
developments in our understanding of how the
environment (including anthropogenic activity and
climate) regulates reef form and function, and
consequently the likely future for coral reefs
given predicted environmental and climatic
change. Abstract submission is now open
(<http://www.aslo.org/meetings/sanjuan2011>www.aslo.org/meetings/sanjuan2011)
and we welcome contributions from across the
coral reef research, conservation & management
communities. CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSION OF
ABSTRACTS IS 11 OCTOBER 2010. Please do not
hesitate to contact the session conveners for more details.
S36: INTERACTIVE AND REPEAT EXPOSURE EFFECTS OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PERTURBATIONS UPON CORALS AND CORAL
REEF PROCESSES (David J Suggett,
<mailto:dsuggett at essex.ac.uk>dsuggett at essex.ac.uk;
Andrea G Grottoli,
<mailto:grottoli.1 at osu.edu>grottoli.1 at osu.edu;
Mark E. Warner, <mailto:mwarner at udel.edu>mwarner at udel.edu).
Coral reefs are considered flagship aquatic
ecosystems given their disproportionately high
diversity and productivity but also their
apparent extreme sensitivity to environmental
change. Intensive research efforts in recent
years have largely focused on how reefs and reef
organisms respond to broad scale (regional to
global) changes in climate or smaller scale
(local) changes in eutrophication, sedimentation,
and over- exploitation. Most experimentally based
studies have targeted the influence of individual
environmental factors in isolation (e.g. light,
temperature, pH, or nutrients). However,
observationally based studies implicitly account
for the influence of multiple environmental
perturbations acting simultaneously and/or
repeatedly. As such, our ability to effectively
predict future reef form and function remain
fundamentally limited. It is increasingly
recognized that interactive or repeat exposure
effects of environmental perturbations can (i)
cumulatively lower net reef resilience by acting
synergistically at any one time or repeatedly
over time; and/or (ii) maintain or even promote
net reef resilience by acting antagonistically by
dampening the gross influence of each factor.
Such key multivariate effects remain poorly
understood. Therefore, this session will consider
the net influence of multiple and/or repeat
exposure to environmental perturbations upon reef
process, at scales from individual organisms (the
molecular to holobiont) to entire reef systems.
S31: CORAL REEFS IN A CRYSTAL BALL: WHAT WILL BE
THEIR FUTURE? (Pamela Hallock,
<mailto:pmuller at marine.usf.edu>pmuller at marine.usf.edu;
Bernhard Riegl,
<mailto:rieglb at nova.edu>rieglb at nova.edu; Edwin A.
Hernández-Delgado, <mailto:coral_giac at yahoo.com>coral_giac at yahoo.com)
In the mid-20th Century, coral reefs were best
known where clear ocean waters bathed tropical
shorelines. Today roughly half of the worlds
shallow-water reefs have been lost or seriously
degraded. Human activities are sending
agricultural, industrial and urban wastes and
chemicals, along with increased sediment loads,
into coastal waters. As a result, waters have
become more turbid and fringing reefs have been
buried in sediment or overgrown by
algae. Rapidly rising human populations have
increasingly exploited fisheries, in some places
with Malthusian overfishing. Beginning in the
1970s, even corals in clear-water offshore reefs
began to decline from diseases and bleaching.
More recently, increasing sea-surface temperature
and ocean acidification have emerged as critical
threats to the potential of corals to even build
reefs. Do shallow-water coral reefs have a
future? Will future coral populations be limited
to shallow hardbottom or deeper mesophotic
communities? Can ecological functions be
sustained in changing coral reefs? We invite
scientists dealing with any aspect of the
response of coral reefs to environmental change,
whether to local, regional or global change
processes, to participate in this session. We
invite not only coral researchers, but also
others working with reef-related species,
populations or communities, or environmental
factors that may impact these communities.
*******************************************************
Andrea G. Grottoli, Associate Professor
Ohio State University
School of Earth Sciences
125 South Oval Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
office: 614-292-5782
lab: 614-292-7415
cell: 215-990-9736
fax: 614-292-7688
email: grottoli.1 at osu.edu
Grottoli webpage: www.earthsciences.osu.edu/~grottoli.1/
Fieldwork Micro-blog: www.twitter.com/CoralResearch
Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SIB
Lab): www.earthsciences.osu.edu/~grottoli.1/SIB_Lab.html
SES seminars: www.earthsciences.osu.edu/seminars.php
Office location: 329 Mendenhall Labs
*******************************************************
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