[Coral-List] Webinar on influence of network structure and spatial management on coral adaptation to climate change

skimmer at octogroup.org skimmer at octogroup.org
Tue Jan 12 21:58:07 UTC 2021


Dear Coral List,

The NOAA National MPA Center and my organization OCTO (https://www.octogroup.org/) which hosts the EBM Tools Network and publishes MPA News and The Skimmer on Marine Ecosystems and Management are hosting a webinar on February 25 on the influence of network structure and spatial management on coral adaptation to climate change. It will be 1 hour long, is free, and all are welcome to join. Please see details below.


Webinar: Coral reef eco-evolutionary dynamics: Adaptation and connectivity in MPA networks under future climate change
Presented by: Helen Fox of Coral Reef Alliance, Lisa McManus of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and Lukas DeFilippo of University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Date/Time: Thursday, February 25, 1 pm US EST/10 am US PST/6 pm UTC
Description: While coral reefs face mounting threats, many coral populations are already well adapted to conditions unfavorable to the average coral (e.g., high temperatures, low pH, poor water quality). With the goal of better understanding the drivers of persistence and adaptive capacity and the role of management and MPAs, we developed a general eco-evolutionary framework to explore the influence of network structure and spatial management on a metapopulation’s adaptive response to temperature increase. This framework was applied to coral populations in the Caribbean, Southwest Pacific, and Coral Triangle to determine the characteristics of individual reefs that lead to persistence or decline under climate scenarios and test the efficacy of spatial management strategies (MPAs) in these three regions. We also used eco-evolutionary simulations to explore scenarios of coral propagation, transplantation, and assisted evolution and identified potential benefits and risks of these interventions. We find that corals’ vulnerability to climate change depends strongly on assumptions of their standing genetic variation, which determines the potential for an evolutionary response. One implication of this work is that MPA networks can promote persistence by protecting coral populations adapted to diverse environments so that corals with evolutionarily favored traits reproduce and spread throughout reef networks. 
Co-sponsors: NOAA National MPA Center and OCTO (MPA News, OpenChannels, EBM Tools Network)
Register: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5588691571529633805


Best wishes,
Sarah Carr

___________________________

Sarah D. Carr, Ph.D.
Editor, The Skimmer on Marine Ecosystems and Management (formerly MEAM)
E-mail: skimmer at octogroup.org
Website: meam.openchannels.org 



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