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18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330-8303

Phone: (818) 677-3356
Fax: (818) 677-2034

Email:biology.dept@csun.edu

Office Location:
Chaparral Hall 5101

Hours:
Mon-Fri: 8:00am-5:00pm

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Photo of Peter J. Edmunds in Cook’s Bay, Moorea.

Peter J. Edmunds

Professor

Ph.D. Glasgow University

email: peter.edmunds@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-2502
Fax: (818) 677-2034
Office: Magnolia Hall 4113

Research

View over the south shore of St. John showing Yawzi Point (center) and Great Lameshur Bay (left) that has been the focus of 22 years of continuous time-series analysis from my lab (August 2008).

Research in my lab focuses on the physiological ecology of tropical reef corals and I work at the organismic, population, and community levels.  My research program is structured into two thematic areas.  First, I study the ecology and long-term dynamics of coral reefs in order to identify temporal trends and provide a rich ecological context within which mechanistic research can be designed.  Over the last 22 years, most of my ecological research has taken place on the shallow reefs along the south coast of St. John, US Virgin Islands, where the natural resources are protected within the VI National Park and Biosphere Reserve.  Close collaboration with the biologists and resource managers of the VI National Park has been critical in developing this project.  In 2004, I started a large collaborative project to address the long-term dynamics of coral communities in Moorea, French Polynesia, as part of the US Long Term Ecological Research program (http://mcr.lternet.edu/).  My research in Moorea is beginning to provide a fascinating time-series context that describes the dynamics of coral reefs in the south Pacific that are strongly affected by physical forces (e.g., large storm waves), and most recently, an outbreak of the crown of the thorns seastar, Acanthaster planci.   Now in its 5th year, my work in Moorea is beginning to achieve the temporal detail necessary for meaningful contrasts with other biogeographic regions, notably in the Caribbean (in St. John).  Second, I study the biology of individual corals in order to better understand their basic functionality, specifically to establish mechanistic links between organism performance and community dynamics.  For example, my long-term research in St. John has identified the dynamics of juvenile corals (colonies < 4 cm diameter) as a critical process affecting community structure; surprisingly, juvenile corals in this relatively pristine location have higher mortality rates than found in more disturbed locations such as the Florida Keys.  To explore the causal basis of this trend, over the last decade I have initiated a program exploring the mechanistic basis of the effects of temperature on these early life history stages, and now am beginning to explore the effects of ocean acidification in the same system. 

Teaching

At CSUN

• Invertebrate Biology (Biol 313)
• Physiological Ecology (Biol 422)

Field classes

• Catalina Science Semester.  This is a 15-week residential class at Santa Catalina Island, which usually is taught every one every two years in the Fall (next offering F2010)

• Three Seas Marine Biology Program.  This is a year-long program offered by Northeastern University that places students in residential marine biology classes in Nahant (MA), Moorea (French Polynesia), and Santa Catalina Island (CA).  During January/February, I teach the class “Biology of Corals and Coral Reefs” in Moorea. 

Current research and funding

The shallow reefs of St. John, USVI, showing an unusual outbreak of the seastar Oreastar reticulates (August 2008).

Research in my lab currently is funded through NSF awards in the Long Term Research in Environmental Biology program (LTREB; for work in St. John, USVI), the Long Term Ecological Research Program (LTER; for work in Moorea, French Polynesia), and the Advancing Theory in Biology program (ATB; for research on Dynamic Energy Budgets in collaboration with Dr. Roger Nisbet [UCSB]).  My research in St. John focuses on decadal-scale perspectives of coral reef community dynamics (the current award will take the project to its 23nd year), the development of demographic models to better understand the causal basis of changes in coral cover, and the testing of thermal effects on early life history stages of reef corals (i.e., juvenile corals and new recruits).  Our LTER research in Moorea now provides exciting opportunities for process-oriented analyses that can be used to test hypotheses regarding the causes of the changes described in St. John.

Our LTER project in Moorea was awarded in September 2004 and is funded for six years with the expectation that it will be supported for 30+ years.  Together with three other Principal Investigators (Drs. Robert Carpenter [CSUN], Russell Schmitt [UCSB] and Sally Holbrook [UCSB]) and 14 other research scientists, I have established a project supporting a time-series analysis of the coral community structure around the three shores of Moorea that are exposed to differing hydrodynamic regimes.  My responsibilities within this project focus on the ecology and biology of the scleractinian corals, and therefore in addition to the time-series analysis for this taxon, my studies have focused on their mechanistic biology.  In the first 5 years of this project, my experimental work has addressed the effects of temperature on the early life history stages of corals that include their larvae, new recruits, and juvenile colonies.

In addition to my major research efforts in Moorea and St. John, I am working to build a collaboration with coral scientists at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in southern Taiwan (http://www.nmmba.gov.tw).  This facility offers unrivalled opportunities for studies of the ecology and physiology of tropical reef corals and already we have made multiple trips with students to establish the relationship and have established a formal relationship between CSUN and the National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan.  Working closely with our Taiwanese counterpart, Dr. Tung-Yung Fan, we are pursuing significant funding that would allow us to complete significant research in Taiwan.

Principal collaborators

Drs. Russell Schmitt and Sally Holbrook (University of California at Santa Barbara)
            • ecology of coral reefs in Moorea
Dr. Robert Carpenter (CSUN)
            • ecology of coral reefs in Moorea and the Caribbean
Dr. Ruth D. Gates (University of Hawaii)
            • physiology and molecular biology of reef corals
Dr. Hunter Lenihan (University of California at Santa Barbara)
            • ecology of reef corals in Moorea
Dr. James Leichter (Scripps Institute of Oceanography)
            • biophysical coupling on coral reef systems
Dr. Roger Nisbet (University of California at Santa Barbara)
            • dynamic energy budgets for reef corals
Dr. Tung Yung Fan (National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, Taiwan)
            • ecology and biology of reef corals in Taiwan
Dr. Mehdi Adjeroud (Université de Perpignan, France)
            • reef ecology in Moorea

Graduate students

My graduate students work on coral reef research, and all are encouraged to develop their own project independent of the externally-funded research in my lab.  Their projects cover a wide diversity of topics within an ecophysiological theme, and all are completed in parallel with existing projects in the Caribbean, South Pacific, and Taiwan.  Thesis projects have included:

Current students:

  • William Goldenheim -- photophysiological performance of tropical reef corals.
  • Daniel Green -- small--scale thermal effects on coral recruitment in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
  • Caitlin Cameron -- direct and indirect effects of fish predation on tropical reef corals.
  • Nicholas Colvard -- light microenvironments on coral reefs and their effects on coral physiology.

Past students:

  • Nancy Muehllehner -- The effect of pCO2 on coral morphology and skeletal structure (M.S., CSUN, 2008).
  • Hollie Putnam -- The physiological response of reef corals to short-term fluctuations in temperature (M.S., CSUN, 2008).
  • Mairead Maheigan -- Scale dependency of phenotypic plasticity in reef corals
  • Robin Elahi -- Effects of age and size on the growth and physiology of scleractinian corals (M.S., CSUN, 2006).
  • Laurie Requa -- Mechanisms of adaptation by reef corals to the low irradiance conditions found beneath algal mats
  • Geoff Horst -- The interactive effects of temperature and aragonite saturation state on coral growth (M.S., CSUN, 2004).
  • Traci Prude -- Interactions between juvenile corals and algal turf communities
  • Joshua Idjadi -- The role of scleractinian corals in positive interactions in tropical coastal communities
  • Rebecca Habeeb -- Acclimation in tropical reef corals (M.S., CSUN, 2001).
  • Carla Zilberberg -- Mechanisms and consequences of competitive interactions among small corals (M.S. CSUN, 2001).
  • Steven Vollmer -- The scaling of physiological traits in juvenile scleractinians (M.S.).

Publications

2008 Edmunds PJ, Gates RD. Acclimatization in tropical reef corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series 361: 307-310

2008 Edmunds PJ. Seawater temperature mediates growth scaling in juvenile scleractinian corals. Marine Biology 154: 153-162

2007 Edmunds PJ. Evidence for a decadal-scale decline in the growth rates of juvenile scleractinian corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series 341: 1-13

2007 Edmunds PJ, Elahi R. The demographics of a 15-year decline in cover of the Caribbean reef coral Montastraea annularis. Ecological Monographs 77: 3-18

2006 Edmunds PJ. Temperature-mediated transitions between isometry and allometry in a colonial modular invertebrate. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 273: 2275-2281

2006 Carpenter RC, Edmunds PJ Local and regional scale recovery of Diadema promotes recruitment of scleractinian corals. Ecology Letters 9: 271-280 (DOI 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00866.x)

2005 Edmunds PJ. The effect of sub-lethal increases in temperature on the growth and population trajectories of three scleractinian corals on the southern Great Barrier Reef Oecologia 146: 350-364 (DOI 10.1007/s00442-005-0219-5)

2002 Edmunds PJ. Long-term dynamics of shallow coral reefs in St. John, US Virgin Islands. Coral Reefs 21:357-367.

2001 Edmunds PJ, Carpenter RC. Recovery of Diadema Leads to Reduced Macroalgal Cover and Increased Abundance of Juvenile Corals on a Caribbean Reef. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98: 5067-5071.

1997 Bruno JF, Edmunds PJ. Clonal variation for phenotypic plasticity in the coral Madracis mirabilis. Ecology 78: 2177-2190.