Close to sixty researchers from twelve nations, and thirty institutions spent the week of the 9th to 12th of September in Bremen to attend the second Topical Meeting of the DFG Priority Programme “Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs” (SPP 2299). The coordination team welcomed many core programme participants back to Bremen and several international guests expanding the exciting programme to a broader network.
This year’s meeting focused on “Tropical coral records of climate change and environmental stress” as tropical coral reefs are one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change. Tropical coral reefs are sensitive to heat stress which often results in coral bleaching. Coral bleaching occurrences are characterised by the expelling of tiny algae that live in symbiosis with the coral hosts, resulting in the white colouring of reefs. Large thermal stress events can cause this expulsion and prolonged periods of warmth can lead to coral mortality.
In 2023, global sea surface temperatures were the warmest since the start of instrumental observations in the mid-to-late 19th century. These warm temperatures, resulting from anthropogenic climate change, were associated with regional weather extremes and were further amplified by the developing El Niño event in the second half of the year. The world’s oceans reached unprecedented record temperatures for 15 consecutive months from April 2023 (have a look at the graph – you can check out the temperatures here). As a consequence, marine heatwaves during the year resulted in an unusually early onset of coral bleaching in the tropical Atlantic and subsequent coral bleaching across the tropical Pacific, Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
In April 2024, the United States NOAA declared the fourth global coral bleaching event since the first observed in 1998, associated with the occurrence of significant coral bleaching in both hemispheres of all major ocean basins. This global coral bleaching event is not over yet, as summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere oceans have just reached their annual peak again, with the potential for further coral bleaching in the Caribbean, along the East Asian coasts, and in the northern Red Sea during the remainder of 2024.
The Priority Programme aims to improve our understanding of tropical climate variability and its impacts on coral reef ecosystems in a warming world. This improved understanding comes from before the start of instrumental climate observations and coral reef monitoring, extending our current knowledge. The topical meeting featured talks across the three days, from Monday to Wednesday with participants giving SPP 2299 project talks, and invited participants contributing various other talks.
During the topical meeting, an exciting feature was the inclusion of coral reef region talks where speakers were invited to talk about the status of both coral reef research and the current health of coral reefs in their institute’s country. These talks were given by;
- Tries Blandine Razak (IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia),
- Jani Tanzil (National University of Singapore & St. John’s Island National Marine Laboratory, Singapore),
- Natan Pereira (Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil),
- Jen Nie Lee (University Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia),
- Suchana Apple Chavanich (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand),
- Juan Pablo D’Olivo (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Puerto Morelos, Mexico).
During the topical meeting, there were several featured keynote speakers including;
- Maren Ziegler (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany),
- Alex Wyatt (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong),
- Gavin Foster (University of Southampton, UK),
- Duo Chan (University of Southampton, UK),
- Diane Thompson (Biosphere 2 & University of Arizona, USA).
The meeting was followed by a workshop for SPP 2299 Early Career Researchers on “Navigating academic publishing and thriving in academia”. This workshop was delivered by Nathalie Goodkin (American Museum of Natural History, USA), Jani Tanzil (National University of Singapore & St. John’s Island National Marine Laboratory, Singapore), Jessica Hargreaves (MARUM, University of Bremen) and Thomas Felis (MARUM, University of Bremen).
In addition, this meeting was the first where we were joined by several future coral reef scientists with some of our invited researchers bringing their children along. These children were looked after by a professional company and visited several childcare centres around the University of Bremen featuring trips to the local science museum and a final day of face painting. Childcare options are always available to members and invited speakers at SPP 2299 meetings, this allows us to alleviate some logistical issues for parents attending our meetings and fosters a welcoming environment.
The DFG Priority Programme “Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs” (SPP 2299) brings together more than 40 international researchers from 15 institutions across Germany who apply novel geochemical and isotopic methods on coral skeletons, together with state-of-the-art statistical methods and Earth system modelling, to better understand not only past and future tropical climate, but also the responses of corals to past and future heat stress. The meeting was organized by Thomas Felis, Jessica Hargreaves, and the SPP 2299 coordination team at MARUM, University of Bremen.
Post written and edited by Jessica Hargreaves and Thomas Felis, image credit to Jessica Hargreaves and Thomas Felis unless otherwise stated.