Talk title: Effects of oil and nutrients on Red Sea benthic recruitment

Presenter: Ann Marie Hulver

Date: September 12, 2018
Time: 3-4 pm
Location: Auditorium level 0, between buildings 2 and 3

Abstract:  Vision 2030, the Saudi government's plan for the future of the country, promises to increase the effects of human populations on the Red Sea. From different possible stressor combinations, I chose to look at the interacting effect of nutrients and oil pollution. Coastal development will increase the possibility of an oil-related event and inevitably, eutrophication on the Red Sea reefs will also increase. Using a manipulative field experiment, I have been studying how the reefs off of KAUST may recover after a disturbance under four treatments: control, nutrient addition, oil addition, and a combination of nutrient and oil addition. This experiment attempts to show how recruitment on the Red Sea may change under different future scenarios.

Talk title: Herbivorous fish functional diversity across a degradation gradient in Red Sea coral reefs

Presenter: Lucia Pombo Ayora

Date: September 12, 2018
Time: 3-4 pm
Location: Auditorium level 0, between buildings 2 and 3

Abstract:  The main idea of this research is to try to understand how functional diversity changes in fish assemblages can be indicators of coral reef health state. We were focused on looking at some morphological feeding traits as well as ecological traits defined in the literature and obtained in the field of herbivorous fish. Why herbivorous fish? Because they have a critical role in controlling and shaping algae communities in coral reefs, we have to remember that healthy coral reefs have coral dominance over alga coverage, and if algae are not controlled by herbivorous organisms they will grow uncontrolled. This research was carried out in three reefs close to KAUST, each of them presents a gradient of degradation from a coral-dominated zone to an algae-dominated zone.