Reefs for the Future - Nova Southeastern University

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Author Index Oral and Poster Exhibits
Program
General
Special
Presentations
Information Recognitions
24
Scientific Program
Plenary Sessions
Sponsored by AIMS
All Plenary Sessions will be held in
the Grand Ballroom,
3rd Floor of the
Convention Center.
Malcolm
McCulloch,
The Australian
National
University, Australia
Lessons from
the Past
Monday, July 7, 10:00AM
Professor Malcolm McCulloch
grew-up in Western Australia
where he received undergraduate
training in the physical sciences. In
1980 he was awarded a Ph.D. from
the Division of Earth and Planetary
Sciences at the California Institute
of Technology and then returned to
Australia to take-up a Research Fellowship
at The Australian National
University in the Research School
of Earth Sciences. At ANU he was
responsible for establishing a new
range of geochemical methods to
better understand how the Earth’s
continental crust and mantle has
grown and evolved. For the past
decade his research interests have
increasingly focused on the modern
part of the geologic record,
using isotopic and trace element
methods to determine how climate
and anthropogenic processes have
influenced both past and present
environments, with particular emphasis
on coral reefs. Using geochemical
proxies preserved in the
long-lived (300 to 400 year old)
coral skeletons from the Great Barrier
Reef he has been able to show
how European settlement and associated
land-use practices has led to
a five to ten fold increase in sediment
and nutrient fluxes entering
the reef relative to ‘natural’ levels.
This has provided important quantitative
evidence to support enhanced
National-State protective
measures. Using a similar geochemical
isotope-based approach,
his group has also been able to
show that the effects of rapidly increasing
levels of anthropogenic
CO 2 are now becoming evident in
living corals, reinforcing the concerns
about the impact of ocean
acidity on coral reef systems. He
has also undertaken research on
fossil coral reefs, in particular those
from the Last Interglacial, where he
has demonstrated the realities of
an ~4 meter higher sea-levels associated
with warmer sea surface
temperatures, providing a benchmark
for likely future increases. He
an Associate Director of the ARC
Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef
studies and has received a number
of awards including Fellowship of
the Australian Academy of Science
(2004), the American Geophysical
Union (2002) and most recently
the Geochemical Society (2008).
Joan Kleypas, National Center
for Atmospheric Research,
USA
Helping Coral
Reefs Through
Climate Change
Crisis: Mission
Possible
Monday, July 7,
2:00PM
Joanie Kleypas is a scientist at the
National Center for Atmospheric
Research who specializes on the effects
of climate change on marine
ecosystems. She studied fish ecology
toward a Master's degree at the
University of South Carolina, and
completed her Ph.D. at James
Cook University in Australia, working
under Professor David Hopley
(and alongside Rob van Woesik) on
the ecology and geology of the
Southern Great Barrier Reef.
For the last 10 years, Joanie's work
has focused on two main aspects of
rising atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentration: global warming and
ocean acidification. "Ocean acidification"
refers to the progressive,
global reduction in seawater pH
that results from the ocean's increased
uptake of atmospheric carbon
dioxide. Joanie was introduced
to this concept by Dr. Bob Buddemeier,
whose ability to synthesize
information from geochemistry, hydrology,
biology and paleontology
allowed him to forecast the potentially
far-reaching effects of this fundamental
change on the ocean
carbon cycle and biosphere. Building
on, but never matching Bob's
vision, Joanie takes a broad-brush
approach to studying how climate
change and ocean acidification will
affect coral reefs. She works with
marine chemists, coral physiologists,
ecologists, and geologists to
investigate how coral reef ecosystems,
and indeed the reef structures
themselves, will change over
the course of this century. Her
work aims to improve our ability to
predict which reefs are least vulnerable
to future warming and acidification,
and thus improve the
success of conservation strategies.
Roberto
Iglesias-Prieto, Universidad
Nacional
Autonoma de
Mexico, Mexico
Photophysiology,
Bleaching, and
Adaption
Tuesday, July 8,
8:30AM
Roberto Iglesias-Prieto is the head
of the Unidad Académica Puerto
Morelos at the Institute of Marine
Sciences and Limnology of the Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de
México and the Chair of the
Mesoamerican Center of Excellence
of the GEF/World Bank Coral
Reef Targeted Research program.
Born in Mexico City, he received a
bachelor’s degree in biology and a
MSc. in biological oceanography at
11 th International Coral Reef Symposium ■ Reefs for the Future