CSUN University News Clippings

PROFESSOR PETER EDMUNDS

“Save the Coral Reefs—Save the Planet” may sound like the tag line to a TV show but the truth is that the coral reefs, known as “rainforests of the sea,” are dying worldwide at an alarming rate, primarily as a result of global warming as well as other local factors. Teams of marine biologists from all over the world are studying the coral reefs in order to develop a plan to save them.

One of those scientists is a professor at California State University Northridge, marine biologist Peter Edmunds Ph.D. He has dedicated his career to studying the world’s coral reef population. For the past 22 years he has collaborated with students and other scientists to investigate coral reefs in the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

Now, the National Science Foundation has awarded Dr. Edmunds, and his colleague Dr. Robert Carpenter, two grants totaling more than a million dollars that will allow them to expand their studies of coral reefs. “The grant news is very exciting,” said Dr. Edmunds. “Each grant will help with two different projects in two different locations to learn more about coral reefs.”

The first grant, for $450,000, adds seven to twelve more years to a study Dr. Edmunds began in 1987 on coral reefs in the American Virgin Islands. He and his students are collecting data on how reefs are affected by growing human pressures such as global warming.

“The result of this study will contribute to a clear description of the fate of coral reefs in the coastal waters of the United States and the factors that are causing them to change,” Dr. Edmunds said. “It is only through efforts such as these that it will be possible to effectively describe how global climate change and other human factors are affecting coral reefs.”

Dr. Edmunds has also had a second NSF proposal for $590,000 approved. It is highly unusual for NSF to award two grants in the same year to the same scientist. Dr. Edmunds admits, “It is quite a coup for my lab and Cal State Northridge.”

Jerry Stinner, Dean of CSUN’s College of Science and Mathematics was more lavish in his praise, “This is an amazing accomplishment and speaks volumes about the quality and importance of Dr. Edmund’s work. In my career, I have only known a couple of scientists to receive largemultiple awards from NSF, and they were ‘movers and shakers’ in the scientific community.”

The second grant, over the next three years,will create the first comprehensive analysis of the early life stages of corals through their function under “normal” conditions and their response to components of global climate change. Experiments will take place in a marine laboratory and public aquarium located in Southern Taiwan, “that provides unrivaled experience in coral reproductive biology and superb facilities,” Dr. Edmunds said.

While the project will be based at CSUN, Dr. Edmunds intends to send CSUN students along with several K-12 educators, to Taiwan to extend the educational experience, create relationships with Taiwan and open the university doors for Taiwanese transfer students.

“The international context for the fieldwork creates unique opportunities to provide globally oriented training for the American scientific workforce, educational activities for the local students in Taiwan and wide exposure for the results through a spectacular public aquarium in Taiwan that is part of the science campus where this research will be based,” Dr. Edmunds said.

Corals are marine animals related to jellyfish and anemones. Coral reefs are formedwhen corals secrete a hard calcium like substance that can take a variety of forms from elaborate finger-shapes to branching, or mound shaped structures. The corals can create masses of limestone that stretch for tens or even hundreds of miles.

Coral reefs are important in a wide variety of ways. Coral reefs are a tremendous source of wealth for tropical communities bringing in millions of tourist dollars. For the indigenous people who fish there, coral reefs provide a source of protein. They play a role in helping to reduce the impact of storms on local beaches.

Coral Reefs are also a significant potential source of bio-active compounds. “There’s a lot of biomedical research looking at the role of chemicals in coral that might have value in the future as a cure for a variety of human diseases,” Dr. Edmunds said.

Tragically, corals are under pressure from both local and global sources. “Things like rising temperatures, and increasing disease on coral reefs are killing corals on scales of tens or thousands of square kilometers throughout the world,” said Dr. Edmunds.

On the local level, things like the runoff of nutrients from golf courses, the runoff of sedimentation from unpaved roads and agriculture next to a shore kills the corals. Added to that are careless anchoring, careless walking or tourists who break off a piece of coral for jewelry or home decoration.

There are things that can make a substantial difference to local coral reef resources: Strengthening marine protected areas, better coastal zone management and coastal drainage, creating protection from unpaved roads and stopping over irrigation and fertilization near the shore lines, and limiting coastal fisheries. The most important factor is strong local government support to enforce the regulations.

Addressing the global issues is much more complex. Slowing down and reversing global warming will take a high degree of international cooperation and political will power applied over a long period of time.

Dr. Edmunds is an example of how international the study of marine biology can be. Born and raised in southern England, he was an avid follower of the French marine biologist, Jacques Costeau, who fueled his desire to become a marine biologist. Dr. Edmund received his undergraduate degree from the University of Newcastle and his doctorate from Glasgow University. Coming to the United States, he taught at Northeastern University in Boston and for Cornell in the American Virgin Islands before being hired by CSUN.

In 1987, Dr. Edmunds began to study the corals of Great Lameshur Bay, St. John, the American Virgin Islands. Most people go there for vacation but Dr. Edmunds and his students are there to work. “Grad and undergrad students go for a month counting corals, counting baby corals, measuring sea water temperature, etc,” Dr. Edmunds said.

Dr. Edmunds also participates, along with researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara, in the NSF Long Term Ecological Research project in Moorea. It is a major coral reef study in the South Pacific.

CSUN may not be the first university that comes to mind when discussing marine biology research but Dr. Edmunds’ work may change that. Besides, as Dr. Edmunds points out, “Areally critical part of the fabric of science is actually writing science and sitting there thinking, and analyzing data and working with students where you have a lot of time interacting with them and mentoring them and that takes place very easily in most urban campuses.”

Students who are selected to do field research in the Caribbean and the South Pacific go through a rigorous process. They start off doing “grunt” work in the lab and are gradually given greater responsibility if they show that they have the interest and aptitude for research in marine biology. Occasionally, some students go on to become professionals in the field.

Dr. Edmunds fondly recalls that about ten years ago, a student from Brazil, “an undergraduate with no direction, no idea of what she wanted to do” came into his lab with a professed interest inmarine biology. She went on to graduate with a Master degree and returned to Brazil to earn her Ph.D.

“I just heard [the other day] that she got a faculty job in a university in Rio de Janeiro and she’s going to study anemones and corals. That’s awesome,” he said. Dr. Edmunds added that he finds it tremendously rewarding whenever one of his students goes on to join the field, “They use the skills they’ve learned in your lab to do research in related disciplines and you see them championing the issues you felt important in science and mentoring for their own students.”

Doing the fieldwork has a positive impact on the classroom when the instructors return to teach their classes. “It provides an invigoration to the instruction that can really only come from having mentors and instructors who are doing science. It’s really hard to put a value on that but itmakes a huge difference to the undergraduate environment here,” says Dr. Edmunds.

Studying corals has changed some of Dr. Edmunds’ views. He feels uncomfortable when he sees coral jewelry or decorations. With the environmental degradation over the last few decades and the explosive growth of human population, “I think the time has passed when we can really afford the luxury of using animals like corals like toys and jewelry,” he said.

Although he sees the situation for coral reefs as dire, Dr. Edmunds has not lost hope. “The final few chapters of the success of coral reefs have yet to be written. I certainly do not think that all has been lost.Alot of things can be done to help coral reefs survive and to persist in a form that people will enjoy for many years to come.”