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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

You can read about it in the new issue of Science with an Essay I wrote... unless you mean the photo. It's a stunning coral in Palau, where reefs have been lucky to escape significant heatwave mortality for many years now

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Delighted to see our paper out in Science Magazine today. And congrats for the amazing picture James Guest! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

In Science Journals

Highlights from the Science family of journals

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Wednesday in Tulum: James Guest at 11.30am on a 5- year selective breeding trial & myself at 12.00pm on natural adaptation and importance of which trait we choose for breeding

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Can we selectively breed Acropora corals for heat tolerance? Two upcoming Coralassist Lab talks on adaptation & breeding @coralconsortium.bsky.social #ReefFutures Feasibility & lessons learned from Pacific context building on our 2 new papers: doi.org/10.1126/scie... rdcu.be/d2RhM

doi.org

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Thanks to all the other supportive groups & institutions helping fuel ideas in our field: PICRC AIMS, @newcastleuni.bsky.social Coralassist Lab, University of Queensland, @ubcoceans.bsky.social, Southern Cross Uni (12/12)

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Thanks for supporting this work: @ukri.org NERC, ONEPlanet DTP, ERC Research, Mitacs Canada, @rgsibg.bsky.social @icrs.bsky.social IDEAWILD & wonderful coauthors: YM Bozec, J Bythell, @simondonner.bsky.social, H East, AJ Edwards, Y Golbuu, M Gouezo, J Guest, A Humanes, C Riginos & P Mumby (11/12)

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Now we must combine this knowledge to support natural adaptation and enhance the heat tolerance of key coral species at local scales for high priority reefs. (10/12)

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Our work is a call to action. If we want healthy reefs we must reduce emissions & manage reefs strategically to promote adaptation potential. It's also a call away from complacency. Adaptation may well help maintain coral populations if we can deliver on decarbonisation. (8/12)

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If we abandon the cause for climate action & global temperatures rise by ~5°C, Acropora corals in our model disappear. This holds true even for an upper limit of adaptive potential, where heat tolerance is 100% genetically determined & inherited perfectly. (7/12)

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Given current climate policies (which are lagging behind Paris commitments), we're on track for a ~3°C warmer world. Including adaptation in our model can make the difference between Acropora corals being lost vs. persisting, albeit with a potential loss of reef function (6/12)

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No matter our actions on reducing emissions, Acropora corals are expected to decline over the coming decades. But if we can achieve Paris Agreement commitments and limit warming to 2°C, then natural selection could allow Acropora populations to thrive beyond 2050. (5/12)

credit photo: Peter Mumby, graph: Liam Lachs

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Marine heatwaves and resulting mass coral bleaching & mortality events remain the single biggest threat to coral reefs globally. We set out to test whether coral adaptation via natural selection could occur fast enough to keep pace with ocean warming. (3/12)

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📢New Paper Alert📢 on corals and climate change in Science Adaptation via natural selection could determine whether Acropora corals persist under expected levels of global warming Hyperlinks & explainer thread below ⬇️ (1/12)

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If we can make it to the top of that sand mountain then we can do anything!

Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Just finished a deep dive into detecting historic shifts in coral thermal tolerance with @annacresswell.bsky.social! Felt like we had a mountain to climb, but lots of great new ideas coming now. Thanks to support from @eseb.bsky.social AIMS James Gilmour, James Guest & many more!

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Building on the great work of PICRC in Palau and published in PLOS Climate, the paper explores how heat-mediated mass bleaching and the heat tolerance of a focal coral species vary across reefs that have contrasting historical exposure to marine heatwaves. journals.plos.org/climate/arti...

journals.plos.org

High coral heat tolerance at local-scale thermal refugia

Marine heatwaves and mass bleaching have devastated coral populations globally, yet bleaching severity often varies among reefs. To what extent a reef’s past exposure to heat stress influences coral b...

Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Thanks to Amanda Bates for her thoughts on how the recent paper from my PhD at the Coralassist Lab (on the variability of coral heat tolerance among reefs) contributes to thermal biology and conservation more broadly. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

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Paper was led by Adriana Humanes, Liam Lachs & James Guest Part of the fruitful Coralassist Lab - PICRC collaboration, with support from the Horniman Museum, Uni. Of Exeter, Derby Uni. & Uni. Victoria Funded by ERC, with support from UKRI / NERC (9/9)

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Our study shows selective breeding is feasible, yet potential heat tolerance gains are modest compared to expected future warming. R&D is needed to optimise breeding interventions and maximise positive impacts. Ultimately, reefs still depend on rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. (8/9)

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Offspring bred for short-stress tolerance did not show evidence of enhanced tolerance to the long-term stress that more closely emulates marine heatwaves. To maximise coral fitness in the face of climate change, care will be needed when selecting which traits to breed for. (7/9)

Nature vs. Nurture: The heritability of heat tolerance traits was ~0.2-0.3. This means these traits have a substantial genetic basis but are also heavily influenced by other non-genetic factors. (6/9)

Offspring whose parents had high (rather than low) heat tolerance showed an enhanced ability to withstand the type of heat stress for which they were bred. They can withstand the heat stress for a longer duration before the onset of bleaching and mortality. (5/9)

Then offspring were reared in an ocean nursery until they reached reproductive maturity themselves at 3-4 years old. At this stage, the offspring were exposed to the same heat stress tests that were used years before to select their parents. (4/9)

Selective breeding was conducted for the bleaching survival response of wild corals to both: - a short-term ~1-week +3.5 °C heat stress - long-term ~1-month +2.5 °C heat stress (3/9)

Marine heatwaves are triggering mass coral bleaching & mortality events. Whether corals can adapt fast enough remains uncertain, leading to calls for assisted evolution. Since 2017, the Coralassist Lab & PICRC Palau have been testing whether selective breeding is a feasible option. (2/9)

Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 26/02/2024

📢New Paper Alert📢 Selective breeding enhances tolerance of corals to marine heatwaves Take-home messages: - Breeding corals for heat tolerance is feasible - R&D is now needed to optimise outcomes - Not a silver bullet solution - We still need rapid climate action bit.ly/4h0Tc0P (1/9)

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Nice press release on our recent paper on demographic recovery of corals after catastrophic disturbance over a decade ago in Palau. Result of a fruitful collaboration between PICRC and the Coralassist Lab! picrc.org/new-picrc-st...

Maria Beger @mariabeger.bsky.social · 23/02/2024

Reposted by Liam Lachs

Trait-based analyses say that fish communities in high-latitude coral communities have more generalists than their tropical counterparts that are more specialized onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 15/02/2024

and of course all the other awesome and inspirational colleagues from around the world! You know who you are!

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 15/02/2024

🤙Huge thanks to👏 Advisors James Guest, Pete Mumby, Holly East & John Bythell Mentors Adriana Humanes, Simon Donner, Yim Golbuu Examiners Lisa McManus, Aileen Mill, Andy Suggitt Support from ONE Planet DTP, NERC, RGS, IDEAWILD, ICRS, Mitacs, Newcastle University + many more!!!

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Liam Lachs @liamlachs.bsky.social · 15/02/2024

🎉PhDone🥳 🕺Just passed my Valentines Day PhD viva!🎊 📖 with a thesis that ... 🔥explores the heat tolerance of tropical reef corals - across spatial scales & levels of biological organisation... 🧬models natural selection & future adaptive trajectories #phdlife

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📖 Read it all here: rdcu.be/dybkE and thanks to amazing co-lead Piera Biondi + all other coauthors + everyone who makes these long-term studies possible! (8/8)

High quality long-term monitoring data during the UN Ocean Decade and beyond is critical to understand coral reef resilience and their ability to recover from disturbances. PICRC in Palau is doing amazing work on this, tracking the health of Palau’s reefs since the year 2000. (7/8)

👶🧒👨👴 By monitoring demographic metrics... specifically coral density (no. colonies/m2)... we could detect recovery trajectories 2-4 years earlier than the traditional approach of monitoring coral coverage. (6/8)

The rapid recruitment ability of pocilloporids has been studied in more detail at a nearby reef by Greta Sartori and Pete Mumby. They show strong stock-recruitment relationships for these short-distance dispersing taxa. twitter.com/gretsea/stat... (5/8)

🌊🌀 The coral community after 8 years of recovery differed from the pre-disturbance community… Pocillopora became the most abundant taxon, with fewer Acropora juveniles. (4/8)

Different inset letters shows groups that are statistically different from one another in terms of colony density (No. per m2).

Acropora corals. Photo credit: James Guest

🐇 Recovery of demographic structure was fast for super-recruiting Stylophora (4 years) and Pocillopora (6 years) … 🐢 but slower for Acropora - which were still on the road to recovery after 8 years - possibly due to fewer annual recruitment events. (3/8)

Population size distributions through time (top to bottom) with catastrophic loss of corals in 2012/2013. Inset numbers is the number of colonies recorded. Different inset letters shows groups that are statistically different from one another in terms of mean coral size (GMD).

🌊🌀 We quantify the demographic impact of super typhoons Bopha and Haiyan ... 🔍 on the most-common common branching coral taxa at Ngetngod reef... 📈 and track how their populations bounce back. (2/8)