Learning from experience: An interdisciplinary field and modelling research program to predict the future of coastal ecosystems in a warmer, higher carbon world

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Climate change and ocean acidification pose a critical threat to coastal ecosystems and the goods and services those ecosystems provide to society. Over the next five years, I will lead a cutting-edge interdisciplinary research program to uncover whether coral reefs, among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet, can learn to adapt or acclimate to the warming and changing ocean environment. The results are critical to the millions of people across the tropics that depend on coral reefs for food, income and shoreline protection. ****My research team will address these vital questions using an ideal, yet largely unstudied, natural laboratory located in the remote Pacific Ocean. Thanks to El Nino, the coral reefs of the equatorial Gilbert Islands in the Republic of Kiribati experience abnormally high year-to-year temperature variability, possibly conditioning the corals to cope with a warmer future. However, coral reefs only a few hundred kilometers away, in the outer Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, experience a more benign climate. This unusual gradient in temperature variability allows us to isolate the effect of past climate experience, human disturbances and other key variables on coral resistance and resilience to climate change and ocean acidification. At the same time, my team will develop historical global datasets to document long-term changes in coral reefs and the oceans. Then, using insights from the historical data and our natural laboratory, we will develop a comprehensive system for predicting the future of coral reefs across the planet. ****This research will identify key changes in the ocean environment and also the species and coral reefs most likely to persist in warmer, higher carbon dioxide world. The results can directly inform marine policy, the design of marine protected areas at the local and international level, and planned investments by Canada to help the developing world respond to threats posed by climate change.****************