PhD Dissertation Defense: Justin Baumann

The PhD Dissertation Defense of Justin Baumann will be presented by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Marine Sciences. The main location of this event will be in conference room 3204 on the 3rd floor of Murray Hall on UNC-CH campus in Chapel Hill, NC. The defense will be streamed live online via Zoom (URL link: https://zoom.us/j/317157886) and to UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences room 222 in Morehead City, NC. This event will be held on Monday, July 30th from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm.

Title: The impacts of climate change and human activities on the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef

Abstract: Anthropogenic global change and local anthropogenic stressors such as land use change, increased sedimentation and runoff, and overfishing, are decreasing coral growth and survival globally, thus altering the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems. These stressors combine to deferentially impact coral communities on the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS). Annual temperature variability, summer temperatures, and days spent above the bleaching threshold are all greater on nearshore reefs than on offshore reefs. Such reefs are also likely exposed to greater amounts of land-based stress due to their proximity to the coast. As a result, these nearshore coral communities are less diverse than those further from shore. However, some individuals are able to survive and seemingly thrive in these nearshore ecosystems. These corals do not possess high concentrations of thermally tolerant symbiont (genus: Symbiodinium), yet they have historically grown faster than their offshore conspecifics, indicating that local adaptation or acclimatization in the coral host likely plays a significant role in their ability to survive in such conditions. Ongoing work investigating the acclimatization ability of nearshore corals will also be discussed.