Dr. Peter J. Edmunds

 

Dr. Peter Edmunds

Professor of Biology

 

Polyp Lab

 

    Department of Biology

    18111 Nordhoff Street

    Northridge, CA 91330-8303

    Magnolia Hall 113
    Phone: 818-677-2502
    Fax: 818-677-2034

     

    peter.edmunds@csun.edu

     

    Education:

    Ph.D. Biology, Glasgow University, 1986

     

 

Classes

    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 once every two years in the Fall (next offering F2012)

 

Research Interests

St. John, USVI

     

    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 26 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.lter.edu. My research in Moorea is providing 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 8th 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).

    Diving

    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.

 

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

 

Current funding and research

    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 Biological Oceanography (to study the effects of ocean acidification and climate change in Moorea and Taiwan). My research in St. John focuses on decadal-scale perspectives of coral reef community dynamics (the current award will take the project to its 28th 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 originally was funded for six years with the expectation that it will be supported for 30+ years; currently we are competing for our second renewal. 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. To date, my experimental work has addressed the effects of temperature and OA 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 building 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.

 

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:

    Darren Brown: Effects of ocean acidification on corals in Moorea
    Beth Lenz: The role of phenotypic plasticity in modulating the response of corals to climate change
    Sylvia Zamudio: The thermal biology of tropical reef corals
    Chelsea Vaugh: The role of seawater flow in determining the sensitivity of corals to ocean acidification
    Chris Wall: The effects of temperature and acidification on the photophysiology of reef corals

     

    Past Students

      Lianne Jacobson: Energy metabolism of reef corals. (M.S. 2011)
      Caitlin Cameron: The effects of partial mortality on corals in St. John, US Virgin islands and Moorea, French Polynesia (M.S. 2011)
      Nicholas Colvard: Description of the light microenvironment on tropical reefs and the influence on coral physiology (M.S. 2010)
      William Goldenheim: Photophysiological performance of tropical reef corals. (M.S. 2009)
      Daniel Green: Small-scale thermal effects on coral recruitment in St. John, US Virgin Islands (M.S. 2009)
      Nancy Muehllehner: The effect of pCO2 on coral morphology and skeletal structure (M.S. 2008)
      Hollie Putnam: The physiological response of reef corals to short-term fluctuations in temperature (M.S. 2008)
      Mairead Maheigan: Scale dependency of phenotypic plasticity in reef corals (M.S. 2007)
      Robin Elahi: Effects of age and size on the growth and physiology of scleractinian corals (M.S. 2006)
      Laurie Requa: Mechanisms of adaptation by reef corals to the low irradiance conditions found beneath algal mats (M.S. 2005)
      Geoff Horst: The interactive effects of temperature and aragonite saturation state on coral growth (M.S. 2004)

 

Recent Publications

    2011 Goldenheim WM, Edmunds PJ. Effects of flow and temperature on growth and photophysiology of scleractinian corals in Moorea, French Polynesia. Biological Bulletin 221: 270-279

    2011 Edmunds PJ. Zooplanktivory ameliorates the effects of ocean acidification on the reef coral Porites spp. Limnology and Oceanography 56, 2402-2410

    2011 Adam TC, Schmitt RJ, Holbrook SJ, Brooks AJ, Edmunds PJ, Carpenter RC, Bernardi G. Herbicory, connectivity, and ecosystem resilience: response of a coral reef to a large-scale perturbation. PlosOne 6: Issue 8, e23717

    2011 Edmunds PJ, Cumbo V, Fan TY. Effects of temperature on the respiration of brooded larvae from tropical reef corals. Journal of Experimental Biology 214: 2783-2790

    2011 Edmunds PJ, Putnam HM, Nisbet R, Muller E. Benchmarks in organism performance and their use in comparative analyses. Oecologia DOI: 10.1007/s00442-011-2004-2

    2011 Colvard NB, Edmunds PJ. Decadal-scale changes in invertebrate abundances on a Caribbean coral reef. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 397: 153-160

    2011 Green DH, Edmunds PJ. Spatio-temporal variability of coral recruitment on shallow reefs in St. John, US Virgin Islands. Journal of Experimenal Marine Biology and Ecology 397: 220-229

    2010 Putnam HM, Edmunds PJ. Effect of a fluctuating thermal regime on adult and larval reef corals. Invertebrate Biology 129: 199-209.

    2010 Edmunds PJ. The population biology of Porites astreoides and Diploria strigosa on a shallow Caribbean reef. Marine Ecology Progress Series 418: 87-104

    2010 Edmunds PJ, Ross CLM, Didden C. High, but localized recruitment of Montastraea annularis complex in St. John, United States Virgin Islands. Coral Reefs (in press)

    2010 Edmunds PJ, Leichter JJ, Adjeroud M. Landscape-scale variation in coral recruitment in Moorea, French Polynesia. Marine Ecology Progress Series 414: 75-89

    2010 Lenihan HS, Edmunds PJ. Response of a Pocillopora verrucosa to corallivory varies with environmental conditions. Marine Ecology Progress Series 409: 51-63

    2010 Hollie M. Putnam, Peter J. Edmunds, and Tung-Yung Fan. Effect of a fluctuating thermal regime on adult reef corals and their larvae. Invertebrate Biology 129: 199-209

    2010 Hofmann GE, Barry JP, Edmunds PJ, Gates RD, Hutchins DA, Klinger T, Sewell MA. The effect of ocean acidification on polar, temperate and tropical marine calcifying organisms: an organism to ecosystem perspective. Annual Review of Ecology and Evolution 41: 127-147

    2010 Jacobson, LM, Edmunds PJ. Seawater quality over a fringing reef in St. John, United States Virgin Islands. Bulletin of Marine Sciences 86: 763-772

    2010 Edmunds PJ, Lenihan H. The effect of simulated fish predation on juvenile massive Porites spp. exposed to contrasting regimes of water flow and temperature. Marine Biology 157: 887-897

    2010 Green DH, Edmunds PJ, Pochon X, Gates RD. The effects of substratum type on the growth, mortality, and photophysiology of juvenile corals in St. John, US Virgin Islands. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 384: 18-29

    2009 Muller EB, Doyle FJ, Nisbet RM, Edmunds PJ, Kooijman S. Dynamic energy budgets of syntropic symbiotic relationships between heterotrophic hosts and photoautotrophic symbionts. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A Molecular and Integrative Physiology (Supplement) 153A: S145-S145

    2009 Muehllehner N, Edmunds PJ. Effects of ocean acidification and increased temperature on skeletal growth of two scleractinian corals, Pocillopora meandrina and Porites rus. Proceedings 11th International Coral Reef Symposium 1: 59-63

    2009 Putnam HM, Edmunds PJ. Responses of coral hosts and their algal symbionts to thermal heterogeneity. Proceedings 11th International Coral Reef Symposium 1: 400-404

    2009 M Adjeroud, F Michonneau, PJ Edmunds, Y Chancerelle, T Lison de Loma, L Penin, L Thibaut, J Vidal-Dupiol, B Salvat, R Galzin. Recurrent disturbances, recovery trajectories, and resilience of coral assemblages on a South Central Pacific reef. Coral Reefs 28: 775-780

    2009 Horst G, Edmunds PJ. Spatio-temporal variation in seawater characteristics in a semi-enclosed bay in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Caribbean Journal of Science (in press)

    2009 Edmunds PJ. Effects of acclimatization to low temperature and reduced light on the response of reef corals to elevated temperature. Marine Biology 156: 1797-1808 [DOI 10.1007/s00227-009-1213-2]

    2009 Muller EB, Kooijman SALM, Edmunds PJ, Doyle FJ, Nisbet R. Dynamic energy budgets in syntrophic symbiotic relationships between heterotrophic hosts and photoautotrophic symbionts. Journal of Theoretical Biology 259: 44-57.