Dr Rucha Karkarey
Senior Research Associate, Lancaster University Dr Rucha Karkarey is a marine ecologist and conservation biologist involved in research and conservation in the Lakshadweep islands in India since 2010. Her main interests lie at the intersection of animal behaviour, ecosystem function and conservation biology where she integrates her training in marine ecology with her interest in social science. She is passionate about place-based research, engaging with local communities towards research and conservation, and popular science communication through art and prose. Rucha is a National Geographic Explorer (2022) studying the social and ecological dynamics of fish spawning aggregations and working closely with local communities in Lakshadweep to quantify and manage the multiple contributions of fish spawning aggregations to people. She completed her PhD at the Nature Conservation Foundation (India) in 2019 and MSc in tropical marine biology from the James Cook University (Australia) in 2009. In 2020, she received the prestigious Royal Society Newton International Fellowship when she joined the multidisciplinary REEFs research team at Lancaster University (UK). Site fidelity: Place-based ecology and the case of squaretail grouper spawning aggregations. The squaretail grouper is an aggregating fish that returns seasonally to specific locations on the reef to spawn. From studies across the tropics, it is possible to characterise these locations fairly well in terms of depth, hydrodynamics, benthic condition, etc. It is also possible to predict when the squaretail grouper will return to these locations each year and in what numbers, with the waxing and waning of the moon, and the intensification of fisheries. These universal patterns are what we look for when studying natural systems, and between describing these patterns and unpacking their underlying mechanisms, we believe we are doing the job of ecologists. Since 2010, I have been returning annually with the same regularity as the grouper to its aggregating sites in the remote archipelago of Lakshadweep in the Indian Ocean. My research addresses the ecological dynamics of reef fish spawning aggregations and the evolving history of its exploitation and use. I began studying this isolated aggregation site during my PhD, keen to identify universal principles, that aligned with theory, or, better still, advanced theory in some general way. Over the last decade, my relationship with this aggregation has deepened. My knowledge of the Lakshadweep has grown. The way I engage with the islands, her people, her reefs and her Kokkachammam (squaretail grouper) has changed in subtle and in profound ways. And in this time, my search for the universal has given way to a different way of imagining place: There is nothing universal about the spawning aggregation in Lakshadweep, or in the way people here interact with it. It is unique and of itself. It is not a site. It is a place. In this talk, I will explore the primacy of place, and the consequences this has for the way we do ecology, and the way we hope to conserve these unique, un-universal locations. |
Professor Maria Beger Professor in Conservation Science, University of Leeds Professor Maria Beger is a marine ecologist and conservation scientist with complementary interests in coral reef ecology and spatial conservation prioritization. Her work involves integrating field data, spatial models and decision science to find conservation solutions that link theory and practice. Maria has worked on coral reef research in the Coral Triangle, the Pacific, the Western Indian Ocean, Japan and Australia. She also works on projects dealing with fish biomass predictions, climate change science, ecosystem services, and global evaluations of protected areas. Current themes include integrating larval dispersal into spatial planning and conservation, modelling and managing for coral reef resilience, quantifying human-ecological links in coastal systems, and managing range shifts. Maria also collaborates with local and regional conservation non-governmental organisations such as The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the Marshall Island Conservation Society. She additionally works with government agencies such as the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage in Australia. Subtropical marginal reefs are cool and worth saving High-latitude reefs are heralded as refugia for range-shifting tropical coral species and associated biota, and thus important conservation priorities to “save coral reefs”. Or are they? Tropicalisation is a process whereby tropical species move poleward and establish marginal coral communities, but the expansion of corals and their associated species in the subtropics could also be explained by endemic subtropical species expanding. In this talk, I will summarise my research on subtropical reefs, looking at tropicalisation footprints in fish communities, changes in coral communities from tropical to temperate reefs, and finally, explore trait-based functioning and or take-over by less studied groups, such as molluscs, corallimorphs, soft corals, and zoantharians. I will demonstrate how communities have changed over the past decade with some examples (presenting imagery of site comparisons), and demonstrate that how both range shifts and endemic expansion play a role on changing subtropical reefs. Subtropical reefs are perhaps a conservation priority all in themselves – they are biodiverse, beautiful, provide resources, and they are cool! I will present some ideas on how we can plan for the conservation and management of these reefs with dynamic protected areas in the spatial planning software Marxan in Japan, and finish off with demonstrating how it might actually really be done. |