Peggy Fong
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Coral reefs have been flipping away from coral cover for decades, often in ways nobody predicted. After a disturbance kills coral, a healthy reef is usually taken over temporarily by short algal turf, a dense carpet of fine hair-like filaments that grazing fishes crop and that lets coral larvae settle, so coral can return.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Biology
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
coral reefs
algal turf
macroalgae
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2027
What they work on
- Test whether the order of human impacts changes the resistance of short algal turf communities, by sequentially applying increased fishing pressure, added nutrients and added sedimentation in all possible orders in reef plots at Moorea, French Polynesia.
- Measure recovery of experimental plots after manipulations are halted to determine how the sequence of impacts affects resilience and whether short turf returns or an alternate seaweed state persists.
- Quantify stabilizing feedbacks in all plots to identify the mechanisms that hold either short turf or emergent macroalgal communities in place.
- Relate measured algal traits in plots that shift to macroalgae to the strength of stabilizing feedbacks, so results can be generalized to other tropical reefs.
More about the research
But where people fish out the grazers and wash nutrients and sediment off developing watersheds, different seaweed communities can take hold and refuse to give way, even after the human pressure stops. This project asks a question that has never been tested: does the order in which human impacts arrive determine whether short turf bounces back or a new, locked-in seaweed state emerges?
Why it matters
Reef managers often assume that removing a stressor will let a reef recover. If the sequence of fishing, nutrient pollution and sedimentation determines whether algal turf stays recoverable or hardens into a seaweed-dominated state, that changes how restoration and water-quality or fisheries policy should be prioritized for tropical coastal communities that depend on reefs for food, income and shoreline protection.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ernesto Weil
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, PR·Ecology & Evolution
Measure how the bacterial community (microbiome) in tissue and mucus of susceptible corals such as Orbicella faveolata changes in makeup and abundance before, during and after SCTLD infection, using molecular profiling.
Jonathan Walter
University of California-Davis, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Test how plant functional traits, the physical, physiological and seasonal features of species, influence population and community synchrony, using multi-site time series from the global Nutrient Network grassland experiment.
Benjamin Glass
Boston University, MA·Ecology & Evolution
Profile temperature, oxygen and other abiotic conditions at a Bermuda coral reef to define realistic stress scenarios.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.