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Wally Rich

@reefwally.bsky.social
689 followers 657 following 36 posts

Wisconsinite 🧀 in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 Postdoc at KAUST studying coral reefs of the Red Sea

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Reposted by Wally Rich
Ecological Oceanography Lab @eco-oce-lab.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Find us at #ICRS2026 this week! We would love to connect with fellow coral reef ecologists and oceanographers! 🌊🦑🧪🌍 #CoralReefs #MarineScience #OceanScience @reefwally.bsky.social @gagemele.bsky.social @nicoleburt.bsky.social @icrs.bsky.social @icrsreefstudent.bsky.social
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I'm here in Auckland and excited to present on our lastest project at #ICRS2026! Using repeated coral population surveys and 8+ years of in situ temperature data, we find an unexpected trigger of catastrophic mortality in a heat-tolerant species. Check out my talk on Thursday at 2:45, room 505 🌊🧪🪸
An underwater view of a shallow Red Sea reef flat showing an abundant yellow branching coral, Stylophora pistillata. The presentation title appears in the top of the image: "No respite at night: record -high nighttime thermal stress drives mass mortality in a reef flat coral population adapted to extreme daytime temperatures"
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Mike Fox @miked-fox.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Want to know how oceanography shapes coral reef ecosystems from microbes to sharks and how climate change will impact these vital links? See our interdisciplinary review on ocean-reef connections! Download here: tinyurl.com/jbah3cjx @remotereefs.bsky.social @eco-oce-lab.bsky.social
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
If you have a chance, try to catch a show at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. They do blues, jazz, funk, etc. and it's a really cozy venue - not a bad seat in the house!
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Danielle Spring @daniellelspring.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
New paper! ‘Climate change impacts to upwelling and shallow reef nutrient sources across an oceanic archipelago’ Out now in Limnology and Oceanography @aslo.org aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ⬇️🧵
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Ecological Oceanography Lab @eco-oce-lab.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Join our team as a KAUST global fellow! An amazing postdoctoral program for early career researchers. We study ocean-reef connections and their influence on reef function and persistence under climate change. Reach out to discuss opportunities! 🌊🧪 kgfp.kaust.edu.sa
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon
A cartoon titled ‘The Life of a Scientist’.

(The life is depicted as a set of steps, three up then three down with a character on each)

Baby: Such a mysterious world! 
Child: I must search for answers 
Young adult: Each answer leads me to more questions 
Middle age: ... At least I've got lots of questions 
Old age: Ok, I guess questions are my thing now 
From grave: Such a mysterious world!
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 24/04/2025
Coral reefs around the world have been subjected to unprecedented heat stress since early 2023. A new report finds heat-related coral bleaching has damaged corals in more than 80 countries, making it the most extensive bleaching event ever recorded, with no clear end in sight.
news.mongabay.com
Ongoing global coral bleaching event affects 84% of world’s reefs
Coral reefs around the world have been subjected to unprecedented heat stress since early 2023. A new report finds heat-related coral bleaching has damaged corals in more than 80 countries, making it…
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
What happens when an entomologist-turned-marine biologist skims the latest articles in Coral Reefs: I read this as "the impact of NEONICOTINOIDS on the geomorphology of the northern Great Barrier Reef" and thought surely there can be no connection 😅
Screenshot of an article title that says "the impact of neotectonics on the geomorphology of the northern Great Barrier Reef"
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Ecological Oceanography Lab @eco-oce-lab.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Just in case you haven’t seen the most recent paper from our group, @reefwally.bsky.social investigated solar bias in commonly used temperature loggers. Long story short, the accuracy of your in situ measurements depends on your deployment method and you should always shade your loggers! 🧪🌊
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PLOS Climate @plosclimate.org · 07/03/2025
New on the Latitude blog: a round-up of some of the wide-ranging and interdisciplinary research and commentary on climate and coral reefs published in PLOS Climate. latitude.plos.org/2025/03/cora...
latitude.plos.org
Coral reef research in PLOS Climate - Latitude
Coral reefs are among our planet’s most complex and biodiverse ecosystems and play vital roles in social-ecological systems, but they are also…
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
The U.S. NWS is a truly world-class meteorological predictive service, perhaps singularly so. Its cost of operation is only ~$3-4/yr per taxpayer—equivalent to a single cup of coffee—and yields a truly remarkable return on investment (at least 10 to 1, and perhaps 100 to 1). 3/11
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Read about our new paper on temperature logger best practices in the Latitude blog post! 🌊🦑
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PLOS Climate @plosclimate.org · 30/01/2025
Is the coral reef community comparing “apples to apples” when measuring in-water temperatures? Learn more about recent research published in PLOS Climate by @reefwally.bsky.social and colleagues in the latest Latitude blog post 👇 latitude.plos.org/2025/01/behi...
latitude.plos.org
Behind the paper: investigating potential biases in coral reef temperature data - Latitude
We speak to Wally Rich and colleagues about their recent PLOS Climate publication, “Widespread inconsistency in logger deployment methods in coral reef…
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
That being said, I think there's a lot of interesting work to be done on how a coral colony thermoregulates...I know some research has looked at how different morphologies can disapate heat more effectively. We still have lots to learn!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
To your point about measuring "what the coral feels", I think the physical properties of the coral are going to heat up in a different way than the plastic housing of a logger. The easiest way to measure across different habitats is to measure the water column itself, so long as we do it correctly
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Thanks for pointing this out! This is something we've mulled over as well. The problem with the models that overestimate temperature is that they are measuring temperature inside the housing, which acts like a greenhouse. Models that have a thermistor outside the housing are much more accurate.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Check out the KAUST article about our recent paper on temperature logger best practices 🦑🌊 discovery.kaust.edu.sa/en/article/2...
discovery.kaust.edu.sa
Cheap fixes aid global coral reef conservation
Reliable and standardized ocean temperature monitoring is crucial for advancing our understanding of coral survival and guiding restoration efforts.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
I had the privilege of visiting Palmyra Atoll in 2023 and learned about these plans for releasing the Guam kingfisher. Exciting to see that the birds have arrived!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
There's much more in the paper, including modelling to estimate the amount of bias one can expect under different irradiance levels and with different shading methods. We hope this serves as a reminder to the coral reef research community to think carefully about how you deploy loggers!
A view of a coral reef with a logger deployed inside a white PVC pipe.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Fortunately, there is a cheap and easy way to improve data accuracy: shade your loggers! We recommend putting them inside a PVC pipe, which shades them enough from the sun but allows water to flow freely around them. With proper calibration, even cheap logger models can give reliable data.
A view of a coral reef with a white PVC pipe of about 20 cm length deployed horizontally on the reef. A temperature logger is inside, shaded from direct sunlight.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Moreover, if you want to directly compare temperature stress from your study site to previously-published data, you want to be sure you're comparing apples to apples. What if one logger was shaded and calibrated and the other wasn't? Clearly stating deployment details can improve data comparibility.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
This has implications for research and management...if your logger is reading 2-3ºC above reality because it's in direct sunlight, you are overestimating heat stress at your study site. Remember, 1ºC above normal summer temps is enough to cause coral bleaching and mortality!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
To summarize: more and more people are deploying loggers on coral reefs, but not many of us are explicitly stating whether they are properly shaded or calibrated. What's more, different models have different degrees of bias...some suffer bias even under low light, while others were unaffected!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Another way to visualize this is to plot the offset from the "true" temperature against irradiance on the x-axis. Here you can see the relationship is linear - as irradiance increases, the offset does too. But luckily, when you shade all models, this relationship disappears!
An 8-panel figure showing the effect of irradiance on temperature bias. Each panel shows an unshaded and a shaded treatment for each model. The unshaded treatment tends to linearly increase with increasing irradiance, while the shaded treatment shows no relationship - it's a straight horizontal line.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Below you can see that most loggers suffer solar bias - but some are much worse than others! In general, the brighter it is, the higher the error (that is, the logger overestimates the true temperature more when it's sunny).
A figure showing the solar bias of 8 different loggers compared to a shaded, calibrated logger. Points are color coded to irradiance levels, and brighter points (higher irradiance) have a higher offset from the true temperature than darker points (lower irradiance).
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
We then performed field trials to see how much solar bias affects loggers. First, we determined that one model (SBE-56, pictured below) is unaffected by sunlight. We compared unshaded loggers to a SBE-56 on a shallow reef flat. We also measured irradiance to relate light levels with solar bias.
A SCUBA diver installs a temperature logger on a stake hammered into a coral reef. Fish swim in the background and the entire scene is backlit by the sun.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Our next task was to compare the "out of the box" accuracy of newly-purchsed loggers in a high-accuracy calibration bath. Accuracy varied among models, as well as a function of response time - some are spot on and others are off by 0.2-0.5ºC. Lesson 1 is calibrate your loggers before deployment!
A figure showing the mean offset of three replicate loggers from the calibration temperature. Some logger models never deviate from the true temperature while others have consistent offsets of 0.2-0.5⁰C.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Out of 329 coral reef studies we surveyed since 2013, we were surprised to see that less than 5% of papers mentioned shading loggers. This is despite >40% deploying loggers in less than 5 meters of water, where the potential for solar bias is high!
Figure from the paper showing only 5% of papers stated that loggers were shaded, despite >40% of them deploying loggers shallower than 5 meters.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
We revisited the problem of "solar bias" and surveyed recent literature to see how often researchers mentioned shading or calibrating loggers. We then assessed 10 logger models for accuracy and whether different models are affected differently by direct sunlight in shading trials.
A black plate rests on the bottom of a shallow reef flat. Underneath are a variety of temperature loggers, which are shaded from the sun.A variety of temperature logger models are fastened to a clear acrylic plate that's deployed on the bottom of a shallow reef flat. The loggers are in full sunlight.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
However, this all assumes loggers are collecting accurate data! It has been shown in the past that loggers exposed to the sun can heat up, causing falsely elevated temperature readings. What's more, the inherent accuracy of many new models haven't been evaluated yet in real world conditions.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Over the past few decades, more brands and models of loggers have appeared on the market, and there's an increasing number of loggers deployed on coral reefs globally. This has huge potential for researchers to gain a better understanding of how corals respond to temperature worldwide.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Temperature loggers deployed directly on reefs can reveal subtle changes in thermal dynamics that can't be captured by satellites. This information is crucial, as corals are threatened by warming oceans - in most places, an increase of just 1ºC above the usual max temperature can cause bleaching.
A shallow reef flat with several bleached colonies of branching coral. The corals should be a golden brown color, but are bright white.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
🚨New paper alert! Do you deploy loggers to monitor temperature in coral reefs, or any shallow aquatic environments? Do you shade them from direct sunlight? You should! 🌊🦑 journals.plos.org/climate/arti...
journals.plos.org
Widespread inconsistency in logger deployment methods in coral reef studies may bias perceptions of thermal regimes
Ocean warming is the greatest threat to coral reefs, prompting a need to accurately monitor in situ temperatures. Advancements in sensing technologies have led to a proliferation of temperature logger...
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
The photos are from the same reef in Aug '23, Aug '24 during the recent bleaching event, and today. I saw 3 or 4 live colonies across the entire reef today, whereas before last year there would be that many every square meter. Tomorrow we will survey offshore reefs that hopefully faired better.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
I started surveying the shallow reef flats in front of KAUST for my PhD in 2020. I was impressed that corals could live in such extreme conditions - the water hits 38ºC in the summer! However, heatwaves in '23 and '24 were too much even for these corals. Today's survey had nearly 100% mortality 😞 🌊🦑
A shallow reef flat in August 2023 covered with branching corals. About half of them are live and yellow, while the rest are dead from natural mortality over the years.A few bright white coral colonies in the reef flat that are undergoing bleaching in August 2024.The same reef flat after the bleaching event. Photo taken December 2024. All colonies are grey and dead.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Actually, we saw a bunch of really big Plectropomus, but my GoPro was acting up so no photos 🥲
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Last week we spent a few days in the northern Red Sea to deploy more temperature logger arrays. It was cold (for those of us used to southern Red Sea temperatures 😅) but the reefs are beautiful! We'll swap out the loggers periodically to see how temperatures change across depths over the year 🦑🌊
A temperature logger fixed to a stake in the reef framework at 30 meters depthColorful reef fish swimming around a steep reef wall in shallow watersA colorful, healthy coral community with yellow and purple colonies of several different species.A shallow reef wall covered in healthy coral. In the distance, a diver deploys a surface marker buoy, and the underside of the dive boat is visible.
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Megan Nolan @megannolan.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
🎊 Published: deep, warm-water coral frameworks of the Red Sea 🎊 We used habitat suitability models to show just how extensive these important biodiversity hotspots are! 🪸🌊
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Mónica Medina @momedinamunoz.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Here is a coral reef science starter pack! go.bsky.app/Qo5Gh2H
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Alex Barron @alexrbarron.bsky.social · 03/11/2024
For no reason at all, I'm posting this figure estimating the impact of voting (34 tons) relative to other things you can do as an individual (<3 tons). Spend a few hours on Get Out The Vote if you can. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @sethwynes.bsky.social @simondonner.bsky.social
Distributing emissions responsibility in the 2019 Canadian federal election, median winning vote saves 34 tons, living car free is only 2.4 tons.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
All of this was down by a great team of marine scientists from KAUST and Bangor University. Can't wait to revisit these sites next year and continue this project for years to come! 🦑
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
We also did benthic surveys and collected coral samples to characterize the reef communities at each site. We've generated hundreds of gigabytes of phototransect data and tons of frozen samples... plenty to keep us busy well after the expedition has finished!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
Our loggers are distributed across 160km of the south central Red Sea and are deployed at several depths to capture temperature fluctuations at different scales. Hopefully, the data will help us understand why some reefs fare better than others during marine heatwaves.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
Despite the temperature reprieve, many of these reefs are not in great shape. Most of them experienced massive mortality in the 2015/16 global bleaching event and have not recovered to pre-bleaching levels. This is especially true of the shallows where there are few live branching corals left.
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
Our temperature data show that these sites didn't get as warm as the central Red Sea, which may have spared the corals from the unprecedented heat stress that occured elsewhere in the region. Our loggers collect data every 15 seconds - that's over 800,000 measurements since we deployed them in June!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
We're back! We visited 6 reefs to swap out temperature loggers, collect biological samples, and get some basic oceanographic data following our June expedition. Surprisingly, despite major coral bleaching in the central Red Sea this summer, the southern reefs seemed to fare better 🦑
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 30/10/2024
That'd be great, thank you!
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Wally Rich @reefwally.bsky.social · 23/10/2024
Home for the next week! We're off to the Farasan Banks of the south-central Red Sea to repeat some coral reef surveys. We visited in early June to gather benthic data and deploy temperature loggers. This data will shed light on how the unique oceanography of this region influences reef communities 🌊
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