My research applies functional ecology approaches to understanding ecological resilience on coral reefs, and how this in turn can inform management and conservation planning. Broadly, I am interested in how coral reef ecosystems respond to anthropogenic stressors and the conservation challenges associated with these. Identifying areas that are more resilient (or vulnerable), offers opportunities to focus limited conservation resources and support informed resource management decisions. Functional ecology provides an additional perspective to assessments of species diversity, with advantages in assessing community responses to environmental change and overall impacts on ecosystem functioning. Resilience needs to be considered from a temporal perspective, and I am working with Operation Wallacea’s long term monitoring data to assess how coral reef communities, and the different functions they perform on reefs are changing over time. This fits in to a broad-scale comparative assessment of regions throughout the Indo-Pacific. The project also collaborates with The Nature Conservancy and stakeholders in Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia, to explore how management and conservation objectives can be met through a functional evaluation of resilience.
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