1173rd General Monthly Meeting
What Will Coral Reefs Look Like in 2050
Associate Professor Peter Ralph Executive Director Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster (C3) University of Technology, Sydney
Date: Wednesday, 5th August, 2009
Time: 6:30 for 7:00 pm
Venue: Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road
ABSTRACT
Corals have existed for millions of years and survived in a wide range of climates; but coral bleaching seems to have pushed corals to the brink. Research in to coral bleaching has been at the forefront of the climate change agenda for many years. It attracts much public interest, but we still do not know why corals die at temperatures only a few degrees higher than their optimum. Given the onset of coral bleaching and the combined stress of ocean acidification, I will describe how I see the Great Barrier Reef in 2050. Will the reef be dominated by fleshy macroalgae, soft corals or just a film of bacteria covering the dead coral skeletons?
The speakers's presentation can be found here: Peter Ralph Talk (36 MB PDF).
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Peter Ralph is an Associate Professor at UTS and the Executive Director of the
Plant Functional Biology and Climate Change Cluster (C3). He has over 15 years
experience in the areas of photosynthetic physiology and ecology of marine
plants and is widely regarded as a world expert in this field. His research
team has made significant contributions to the physiology of marine plants,
including corals, Antarctic sea-ice algae, seagrasses and macroalgae. His group
includes senior research fellows, 3 post docs, 7 PhD students and 4 Honours.
His team has on-going research collaborations with Danish, German, UK, US and
Canadian photobiologists. Peter has been addressing questions fundamental to
advancing knowledge of marine photosynthetic organisms that survive at the edge
of their environmental envelope. His group is currently developing mechanistic
models of microalgal photo-physiology, as well as developing a
fluorescence-based proxy of primary production.