Coral Reef Fellowship molds conservation leaders

The world needs more information about coral reef health. But funding for research can be hard to come by, even in prosperous parts of the world—and most coral reefs occur on the shores of developing countries. For young researchers, funding has been especially scarce.

That situation improved markedly a decade ago when a committed member of Ocean Conservancy decided to help reef science through a fellowship for outstanding PhD students, a program which has since been continued by an anonymous member. To date, the Coral Reef Fellowship, which is administered jointly by Ocean Conservancy and the International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS), has helped some 30 grantees conduct invaluable research on reefs.

Fellows include Sheila Walsh of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Noting that 90 percent of top predators are gone from the ocean, Walsh wanted to understand the impacts on fish. Do predators lower the numbers of smaller species? Or, does the removal of predators allow prey populations to increase?

The Ocean Conservancy/ISRS fellowship enabled Walsh's research around the Pacific's remote Line Islands. Specifically, she and her collaborators studied fish population on Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll, US territories and protected wildlife reserves devoid of people. They compared that data with studies on reefs around Kiritimati and Fanning Islands that support small but growing human populations. The comparison between reefs impacted by fishing and those relatively untouched by humans held counterintuitive results. "Fish living on remote reefs where there are lots of predators are growing fast, and they have really big reproductive parts," Walsh says. "They are afraid of being eaten. To avoid that fate, they grow fast so they can't fit in the mouths of predators. And they hurry up and have lots of babies before they get eaten, too."

Her research relates not only to healthy reef ecosystems, but also to human well-being, and supports one of Ocean Conservancy's main goals: establishing sanctuaries where fish and other sea life—from top predators on down—can thrive. Walsh says, "Some people are afraid that marine reserves might be too successful, and that if top predators are restored, they will eat up all the fish. Our results show that's not true." She explains that, far from harming fisheries, marine reserves are like money in the bank: "The fish are growing faster and reproducing more, and then spilling out into the fishery around the reserve."

Walsh and the other recipients might not have found funding without the generosity of the anonymous donor who continues the Coral Reef Fellowship Program. "Most sources of funding are more traditional—they tend to fund projects for professors with proven preliminary data," says Walsh. Coral Reef Fellowships are important for young scientists who are stepping outside the box, with new, unproven ideas to explore—ideas that may just hold the key to saving our imperiled coral reefs.

The fellowship enters its eleventh year this July when 2008 fellows are announced at the ISRS-sponsored quadrennial International Coral Reef Symposium.

Read Other Articles from the Summer issue >>