Assoc. Prof. Dr. Carly D. Kenkel 

Caribbean coral reefs are a critical nexus of global biodiversity and support a range of ecosystem services valued at over $375 billion annually. But they are at imminent risk of extinction due to a combination of local and global threats. Therefore a mechanistic understanding of the demographic factors contributing to population growth and persistence are essential for predicting and managing population recovery. During this sabbatical I propose to develop a series of models to better understand the links between individual growth, fragmentation, survival, and reproduction and how interactions between these factors promote or inhibit recovery of a key Caribbean reef-builder, the staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis. This work will be undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Iliana Baums (HIFMB), the preeminent expert in the biology of Caribbean coral, and Dr. Thilo Gross (HIFMB), a global expert in computational modeling of complex systems. Ultimately, we aim to guide future experimental work by explicitly linking individual-level variation in growth rate and fragmentation potential with the fate of asexual fragments and capacity for sexual reproduction in addition to investigating the degree to which outcomes change under different climate scenarios.