[Coral-List] Session on coral resilience, ASLO 2023

[ATSUSHI FUJIMURA]

Dear colleagues:



We would like to share a meeting session, Resilience in Coral Reef Ecosystems



To be presented at the 2023 ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting, 4-9 June 2023 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.



If your research is relevant to this session theme, please consider submitting an abstract. We can additionally host a speaker that can present a general overview (~30 min) of our session topic. Abstracts must be submitted by midnight Central Standard Time (USA) on 23 February 2023 (05:59 Greenwich Mean Time on 24 February 2023) via the following link:



https://www.aslo.org/palma-2023/registration-information/



Session Code:



SS115



Session Description:



Coral reefs are among the richest ecosystems on earth in terms of biodiversity and productivity, yet are at high risk of habitat degradation and species extinction from climate change and other anthropogenic influences. Resilience refers to the maintenance of key physiological and ecological functions following disturbances, which can be studied from the scale of individual organisms, populations, to entire ecosystems. Ecological factors that can negatively impact coral reefs include increased water temperatures, increased water acidification, overfishing, nutrient pollution, sedimentation, and impacts of climate variability such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. On the individual organism and population scale, resilience occurs through eco-physiological plasticity and/or gene expression and regulation during stress, and the capacity for resilience varies greatly across species and populations. Mechanisms related to resilience at this scale include response traits to environmental changes, population growth rates, and genetic diversity that can measured at both short-term and long-term responses to environmental shifts. Other ecosystem attributes that contribute to resilience includes connectivity, temporal and spatial variability, and functional redundancy. Oceanographic parameters, including water currents at small, meso-, and large scales, tidal force, upwelling, and seasonal rainfall patterns influence marine habitats that may impact the resilience of local organisms. These abiotic parameters can alter nutrient availability, stratification, irradiance levels, the degree of larval retention or dispersal, productivity, and numerous other ecological factors. The high temporal and spatial variability of oceanographic patterns often means that locations must be studied over several years before assumptions can be made regarding resilience of coral reef ecosystems.



Our ability to understand resilience is enhanced with modern technology, including oceanographic sensing instrumentation and molecular genetics. Many reef-building corals and other reef organisms host endosymbiotic algae, a particular topic of interest among coral reef researchers. This host-symbiont relationship creates a complex of nutrient cycling and is recognized to impact resilience on the individual organism and population scale. Advances in molecular genetics and instrumentation such as flow cytometers have helped researchers understand these relationships in recent years. With documentation of worldwide coral reef habitat degradation spanning decades, competitive research grants continue to fund studies across both tropical and temperate reef ecosystems, and the number of coral reef-related research projects increases. Thus, we expect that the research presented in this session will highlight advancements in our understanding of resilience in coral reef ecosystems across many scales. This includes the species, population, and community levels, as well as across spatial and temporal variation.





Please feel free to forward this information to those who may be interested and may not have received this notice. We are looking forward to this session and hope for your participation! Please feel free to contact the organizers if you have any questions.



Organizers:



Star Dressler – University of Guam Marine Lab, dresslerc at gotritons.uog.edu

Atsushi Fujimura – University of Guam Marine Lab, fujimuraa at triton.uog.edu