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Research Fellow | IMAS, Co-founder | Reef Life Survey ProgramKeynote Theme: Species on the MoveRick is a research fellow with the Ecology and Biodiversity group at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and a co-founder of the Reef Life Survey program (RLS). He is a current ARC Future Fellow and Pew Marine Fellow. His research on reef biodiversity mostly involves using field-collected data from local scales to investigate larger-scale phenomena, such as how human impacts and ecological processes scale up to contribute to biogeographic-scale patterns in reef communities. A particular interest has been understanding what shapes species’ distributions and local abundance, and the extent to which dynamic responses to a changing marine environment can be predicted at the community level. A major motivation for his research is to improve the way marine biodiversity is monitored, reported, managed, and protected.
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Presentation: Redistribution: Unpacking the processes behind climate-driven changes in reef communities
We see regularly signs of ‘redistribution’ and other changes in the marine environment that we believe are outcomes of the rapidly changing ocean climate. But to what extent are we focussed on only a few of the most obvious changes? Are there other elements of change that are we not studying well enough, which may be equally or even more important? This talk dives into shallow reef communities, investigating patterns in communities and species distributions over large scales to learn more about the processes of climate-driven change, and what ‘redistribution’ actually means.
