Molly-Mae Baker

@mollymaebaker.bsky.social

Coral Reef Ecology🪸 | PhD candidate at the Australian Institute of Marine Science and University of Western Australia👩🏼‍🔬| View are my own

Our paper out today in @nature.com describes a grim fate for coral reef growth under climate change in the Western Atlantic. We also estimate that reef restoration could offer pockets of local hope, but overall cannot keep up with the effects of climate change www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reduced Atlantic reef growth past 2 °C warming amplifies sea-level impacts - Nature

An analysis of coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic suggests that nearly all will be eroding by 2100 if global warming exceeds 2 °C, which will worsen the effects of sea-level rise.

nature.com

NEW research out today www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... It's been a long time coming. Led by Hannah Aichelman, Brooke Benson, and others, we found that patterns of thermal responses in microbes, phenotypes, etc in the field and the lab were driven by cryptic lineage of the coral host.

Cryptic coral diversity is associated with symbioses, physiology, and response to thermal challenge

Cryptic coral hosts differ in phenotypes relevant to climate change.

science.org

Still hope for coral reefs. Using 28-years of data in Seychelles, we find reefs recovering 4-5 years faster from the 2016 bleaching event, than they did after 1998. Also, a reef that had regime-shifted to macroalgae for over 15 years, is recovering to coral. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Increased resilience and a regime shift reversal through repeat mass coral bleaching

Assessing coral reefs across the inner Seychelles islands, using a 28-year dataset, we document faster coral recovery from the 2016 than the 1998 marine heatwave events. Further, a reef that had regi....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📢New Paper Alert📢 on corals and climate change in Science Adaptation via natural selection could determine whether Acropora corals persist under expected levels of global warming Hyperlinks & explainer thread below ⬇️ (1/12)

credit: Liam Lachs