Environmental conditions sustaining reef coral communities in the Galápagos Archipelago

Over the last decades, coral communities of the Galápagos Archipelago (GA) have suffered high levels of mortality followed by varying degrees of recovery. Corals in this region are positioned within the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, an area that has been identified as a focus for conservation of marine diversity. 

A major driver of mortality events at the GA has been the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon. However, the influence of specific local conditions that define the responses of coral communities to climate-driven stress are not well understood.  

This project will utilize an integrative approach to: 

• build quantitative maps of the coral communities in the GA from different data layers of coral cover, diversity and recovery, building on long-term data sets for different parts of the archipelago. 
• define the oceanographic conditions sustaining these coral communities during documented mortality/recovery cycles using a combination of remote sensing data and modelling approaches.
• assess the resilience of the GA upwelling plume’s ecosystem to climate change by determining the key physical and biogeochemical controls of marine primary productivity in the region and assessing the most likely evolution of those controls over the next 50 years using predictive modelling approaches. 

The findings will be used to future-proof strategies to manage the GA ecosystem health. 

The project will benefit from an established collaboration with the Charles Darwin Research Station, ensuring access to relevant locations and survey data.