Project: El Nino Impacted Coral Reefs In The Tropical Eastern Pacific: Secondary Disturbances, Recovery and Modeling of Population and Community Responses.

This research will continue a long-term study that has focused on ecological disturbances to eastern Pacific coral reefs that accompanied the sever and historically unprecedented 1982-83 El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The study involves international collaboration with host- county research teams and primary field sites in Costa Rica, Panama, and the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), areas heavily impacted by the 1982-83 ENSO. Dr. Glynn will lead the research to continue (a) with the physical and biotic monitoring of eastern Pacific coral reefs initiated in the early-mid 1970s, (b) investigating the responses of different coral species to ENSO stressors, (c) studying coral reproductive ecology as it relates to recruitment success, and (d) documenting coral community recovery. New research directions include (e) remote sensing, which will attempt to link coral bleaching/mortality with local and global scale sea surface temperatures by means of synoptic and repeated measurements, and (f) modeling of coral population and community dynamics based on mechanistic relationships between temperature, predation, coral growth, and survivorship derived from field monitoring and experimental results. Because important secondary disturbances are still occurring and reef recovery has been slow, it is necessary to continue this study in order to understand the variety of changes involved and the full impact of a major disturbance on eastern Pacific coral survival and reef building. We are hopeful that ENSO warming disturbances can provide some insight to the probable changes in coral reefs worldwide if projected global warming causes repeated and/or protracted sea temperature increases comparable to the 1982-83 ENSO.