Agenda

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure”: Designing and building ocean observing and monitoring systems to support robust ocean health assessments and improve the ability (and chances) of marine industries and governments making good decisions on sustainable development.
John Gunn

In the Anthropocene, a suite of pressures on our oceans are threatening species, ecosystems, livelihoods and indeed some of the planet’s core life support systems. For the last few decades scientists have been banging the drum, trying to get the message across to politicians, policy makers and the community that the impacts of these pressures, now and in the future, will cause massive harm to our global community. Although “climate change”, overfishing, pollution and even noise are acknowledged as pressures by many, arguably the science community has had mixed success in a. getting the message across that mitigation and adaptation are critical and immediate needs, and b. driving the required responses. Indeed, in some countries there is growing push back on what is sold as science “doom and gloom” messages.
Having worked at the interface between science, policy and community for many years, I think one of the impediments to getting our messages across is the lack of robust and publically available data sets, collected at time and space scales that allow us to talk with authority about historical trends and current state, and provide a basis for projections of future state.
The climate science community awoke to this issue over thirty years ago and through the World Meteorological Organization and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission they developed the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and associated Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). These two global collaborations have driven the collection of data at space and time scales required to develop and improve Global Climate Models. They have precipitated massive innovation in observing technologies (satellite sensors/systems; robotics), and driven a culture of sharing data, models, and coordinated assessments (IPCC AR etc).
The ocean biogeochemistry and biology/ecology communities have lagged behind the climate scientists, and as a result global assessments of these elements of the ocean system range from patchy to grossly inadequate. Over the last five years, GOOS and GCOS have worked hard to extend their ocean observing systems for physics to include biogeochemistry and biology. I will provide an overview of the progress that has been made, and use a new integrated monitoring program that is being developed for the Great Barrier Reef as a case study of how we might finally start to develop comprehensive and robust observations and data sets for ocean ecosystems.

• Mr. ​John Gunn, Australian Institute of Marine Science

  Australian Institute of Marine Science,
  Chief Executive Officer of AIMS

1. Anomalies in the carbon cycle of Red Sea Ecosystems
Kimberlee Baldry, PI: Carlos Duarte

2. Sponge feeding by Xestospongia testudinaria
Michael Wooster, PI: Michael Berumen

3. N-S gradients in the metabolic rates of benthic primary producers in the Red Sea
Andrea Anton Gamazo, PI: Carlos Duarte

4. Shifts to algal dominance in coral reefs affect biogeochemical functioning: evidence from multi-parameter in situ experiments in the Red Sea
Florian Roth, PI: Burton Jones

5. Can carbonates be the doom of “Blue Carbon”? - Burial rates and potential sources of inorganic carbon in seagrass and mangrove habitats.
Vincent Saderne, PI: Carlos Duarte

6. Corals’ genetic blueprint is linked with the provision of oceans key nitrogenous osmolytes
David Ngugi, PI: Carlos Duarte

7. Methane production by seagrass ecosystems in the Red Sea
Neus Garcias-Bonet, PI: Carlos Duarte

1. Insights from compound-specific isotope analysis into the functional redundancy of herbivorous reef fishes
Matthew Tietbohl, PI: Michael Berumen

2. Spatial patterns of variability in soft-sediment macrofaunal assemblages along an inshore/offshore gradient in the central Red Sea
Zahra Alsaffar, PI: Burton Jones

3. The mysteries of the benthic cryptic reef fauna - What metabarcoding of ARMS reveals!
John Pearman, PI: Burton Jones

4. Assessing population structure of fisheries species around the Arabian Peninsula
Sara Wilson, PI: Michael Berumen

5. Global diversity of marine animals based on metagenomes
Nathan Geraldi, PI: Carlos Duarte

Coral reefs are in rapid decline due to a multitude of anthropogenic activities causing ocean acidification, mechanical damage, declining water quality and climate change. Climate models based on unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions predict temperature anomalies causing severe coral bleaching will occur annually on 99% of the world’s coral reefs within this century. Such severe coral bleaching events lead to extensive coral mortality. Human interventions that increase coral tolerance to thermal and other stresses, and assist in coral reef recovery are thus urgently required in order to ensure coral reef persistence into the future. Assisted evolution (AE) is the acceleration of naturally occurring evolutionary processes to enhance certain traits, and includes selective breeding and preconditioning of coral, directed evolution of coral photosymbionts (Symbiodinium spp.), and manipulation of the coral-associated prokaryotic communities (probiotics). Our proof-of-concept work shows exciting early results, with evidence for rapid temperature and herbicide adaptation in Symbiodinium through directed evolution, the outperformance of purebred genotypes by recombinant genotypes (interspecific hybrids), and a change in the coral-associated prokaryote community composition following inoculation of larvae with specific microbiomes. I will present some of these results and discuss how our findings may be applied to coral reef restoration initiatives. Expanding from our AE work, we have recently begun to explore synthetic biology approaches as these may achieve our goals (i.e., coral stock with increased stress tolerance) faster. I will briefly discuss our progress and near-future plans in this field.

• Prof. Madeleine van Oppen, University of Melbourne

  University of Melbourne
  
  

1. The stability of the giant clam as a holobiont
Melissa Pappas, PI: Michael Berumen

2. Unraveling cnidarian-dinoflagellate signaling pathway activation in the coral model Aiptasia using a transcriptomic and phosphoproteomic approach
Fabia Simona, PI: Christian Voolstra

3. Tissue-specific transcriptome analysis reveals the central role of ammonium in Aiptasia-Symbiodinium symbiosis
Guoxin Cui, PI: Manuel Aranda

4. Copepods (Crustacea) living in symbiosis with Galaxea corals in the Indo-Pacific
Sofya Mudrova, PI: Michael Berumen

Island Recreation Center