Coral reefs contain upwards of a third of all marine species and provide critical ecosystem services to coastal human populations who depend on them for their livelihoods.  They also are among the most threatened of all marine systems.  In the past several decades, numerous coral reefs world-wide have transitioned to a state where seaweeds or other non-coral organisms dominate reefs following a large disturbance.  Although reefs in many regions are shifting to a seaweed-dominated state, some reefs appear to exhibit higher levels of ecological resilience, allowing them to avoid persistent state shifts.  This is the case on the South Pacific island of Moorea, French Polynesia.  The Moorea Coral Reef Long-Term Ecological Research site (MCR LTER) is an interdisciplinary research program that seeks to understand the factors that influence the resilience of coral reef ecosystems to human and natural disturbances, and to better forecast how coral reef ecosystems will be affected in the future by slowly-changing environmental drivers.  The MCR LTER site consists of a coral reef complex that encircles the 37-mile perimeter of the island of Moorea. The project is addressing the community and ecosystem effects of pulsed (e.g., cyclones, coral bleaching, coral predator outbreaks) and local press (e.g., fishing, nutrient enrichment) perturbations that occur against a background of more slowly changing environmental drivers associated with ocean acidification and changing climate conditions.

 An outbreak of a coral predator in 2007-2009 followed by a category 5 hurricane in early 2010 provided the opportunity to explore what influences resilience of coral communities.  To do this, we employed an integrative science approach that addressed specific place-based questions about resilience, including the control of macroalgae and recovery of the coral community, while developing a framework that allowed us to explore more complex questions about interactions and feedbacks within the Moorea system to yield generality.  Our activities included three approaches.  First, we continued to collect time series data that has been a core activity of the MCR since 2004.  The MCR time series program has three components: one is designed to quantify long term trends in key groups of organisms on the reef (e.g., corals, algae, fishes), a second measures temporal patterns of the rates of key ecosystem processes (e.g., primary production, calcification, reef metabolism), and the third estimates trends in major abiotic drivers (e.g., temperature, wave forces, water circulation, pH).  Second, we conducted process-oriented research studies motivated by patterns in our time series data to test explicit hypotheses.  These studies included detailed field measurements as well as short- and multi-year field experiments, with particular attention paid to the processes that control algae and the recruitment of young coral. Third, we developed a framework to evaluate which types of coral might become more dominant in the future when the ocean is warmer and more acidic.  We did this through a combination of field measurements, laboratory experiments and modeling.

 The central element of the project was a participatory training component that provided hands-on research experience for 66 graduate students, 151 undergraduate students, 24 postdoctoral researchers, and 17 K-12 Teachers.  Undergraduate students had the unique experience of working alongside MCR Principal Investigators, Associate Investigators, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students, and were exposed to their different expertise.  All were involved in MCR research and outreach activities and participated in annual MCR All-Investigator Meetings. 

 Another element of the project was an LTER Schoolyard education program aimed at K-12 students and teachers.  We developed web-based resources, including a Marine Life in Moorea Encyclopedia, research descriptions for each MCR graduate student, and a teacher resource section developed largely by our RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) participants.  We partnered with schools that have large enrollments of under-represented and/or economically disadvantaged groups and whose teachers used curricula based on MCR research, attended our professional development activities, and traveled to our field site for research experiences.  Another activity was an annual visit by >100 fourth graders from a local elementary school.  MCR graduate students led K-12 activities at our coral reef booth at the annual Earth Day celebration in Santa Barbara, and our undergraduates served as docents at the REEF (Research Experience & Education Facility, an interactive marine educational facility at UC Santa Barbara) that serves over 10,000 K-12 and public visitors annually.  We produced a children’s book, Kupe and the Corals, which was published in various combinations of English, French, Spanish, Hawaiian, Tahitian and Paumotu. The book is widely used in local schools in French Polynesia.

 The TV series Voice of the Sea produced by the Sea Grant Program at the University of Hawaii produced 12 episodes featuring our project science and graduate students.  Much of our work on coral resilience was disseminated broadly on the internet, both in the United States and internationally.  Our research on ocean acidification and symbiosis has been featured as Top Discoveries from NSF Research.

Last Modified: 11/05/2018
Modified by: Russell J Schmitt