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H2020Individual fellowship2017–2019

TRIM · Vulnerable trait-combinations in corals and fishes and their management

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2017-09-01 → 2019-08-31
EU contribution
€195,455
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-RI

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Results in brief

Vulnerable trait-combinations in corals and fishes and their management

Coral reefs are sentinels for ecosystems’ responses to the climate crisis, with ongoing major global degradation of reef condition, and the expansion of coral reef biota into higher latitudes. This is a problem because it is disrupting the reef resource use of the almost 1 billion people depending on reefs. The management of reefs, and marine systems generally, depends on robust understanding and predictions of how climate stressors affect their functioning. This understanding, in particular the functional perspective, is in its infancy, meaning that we lack knowledge and tools to manage changing coral reefs to both maintain functional integrity and a reasonable level of resource use. TRIM aimed to quantify how multiple coral reef taxa (e.g. corals and fishes) interact to support ecosystem functioning. This necessitated a trait-based assessment of functional groups of these taxa. The main questions addressed were: A. What functional groups exist in taxa and do they respond differentially to human pressures? This question required the building of trait databases for species recorded in existing surveys and use them to identify functional groups of species from various taxa. The abundances of these functional groups recorded in surveys can then serve to assess their responses. B. Are the responses to environmental stress of functional groups and their vulnerability linked? This question aimed to explore responses of taxa together, focussing on the interactions of their functional groups, as well as commonalities and differences among responses of different taxa. C. How should functional groups be managed to mitigate the effects of change (e.g. human use change or climate warming)? This question aimed to develop new and integrate existing methods to conceptualise a new resource management framework of trait-based management.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Vulnerable trait-combinations in corals and fishes and their management (Traits coRals fIshes Management)Cross-taxon interdependencies govern many key ecosystem services, e.g. pollination, agricultural production and coral reef fisheries. Many of these services are deteriorating; this is especially pressing for coral reefs. Human and climate stress drives declines of global coral reef assets, but the characteristics of the most vulnerable species groups are poorly understood. Synergistic coral-fish relationships underpin key ecosystem functions on coral reefs, and control how coral reef ecosystems respond to climate and human stress. Emerging theory proposes that redistributions of reef species follow trait-based filtering, where species with certain combinations of traits, or functional types, are more vulnerable to stressors. Based on biogeographical transition environments and human use gradients as proxies for change, TRIM aims to examine which trait-combinations impart vulnerability to stress in corals and fishes independently and in coral-fish relationships that underpin reef function. Recognising the crucial role that coral-fish relationships play in shaping reef ecosystems, TRIM will discover which traits and functional types linking the two taxa drive their combined vulnerability. By evaluating the responses of coral and fish communities and their functional types under stress, this project will link this knowledge to potential management objectives and identify actions specific to functional types, where vulnerable organisms are stringently protected and others can still be used. I am trained as a marine conservation scientist with focus on spatial planning. With this fellowship, I aim to expand my knowledge and scientific standing in functional ecology, which I believe is a crucial field to inform new ways of natural resource and biodiversity management.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union