Dr Nick Graham

Senior Research Fellow

 

 

Australian Postdoctoral Fellow - APD (2010-2012)
Smart Future Fellow (2009-2012)

Research Interests
Full publications list
Select Publications

 


Research Interests

My research career has focussed on large-scale ecological questions directly relevant to the management of coral reef ecosystems. One of my principal research interests over the past several years has been the impacts of coral bleaching on fish assemblages. I have assessed the longer-term impacts of coral bleaching on fishes and identified the collapse of reef structural matrix as a major driver of declines in a wide range of species and size classes. These impacts lead to reduced fish biodiversity and changes in size structure, leading to lag effects in fisheries and long-term ecosystem disruption. A large-scale, multi-institutional study, covering 7 countries in the Indian Ocean and over a decade of data, enabled us to assess the ability of local management in the form of No Take Areas to protect and promote recovery of reefs in the face of large-scale climate disturbance. Impacts and recovery varied among locations and with local geography, but was not influenced by local management.

Another collaboration in the Indian Ocean led to a large database of coral genera-specific responses to warm water events across the western Indian Ocean with which we assessed the ability of satellite monitoring systems to predict bleaching events and assessed changes in the diversity and community composition of corals across the region. I have had an interest in the impacts of fishing and marine protection on reef fish assemblages for some time and have worked on the time scales necessary for full recovery in No Take Areas and the effects of fishing and protection on predator-prey relationships and the overall size structuring of fish communities. More recently I have been involved with assessing the capability of remote sensing technologies to resolve habitat characteristics on reefs at a scale relevant to fish, and am getting increasingly interested in methods of linking social-ecological systems for natural resource assessment and management in a changing climate. I have co-authored 4 invited review papers.

 

Full publications list

Selected Publications

Graham NAJ, Chabanet P, Evans RD, Jennings S, Letourneur Y, MacNeil MA, McClanahan TR, Ohman MC, Polunin NVC, Wilson SK (2011) Extinction vulnerability of coral reef fishes. Ecology Letters 14: 341-348  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01592.x/abstract

Hughes TP, Graham NAJ, Jackson JBC, Mumby PJ, Steneck RS (2010) Rising to the challenge of sustaining coral reef resilience. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 25: 633-642
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/

Pollnac R, Christie P, Cinner JE, Dalton T, Daw TM, Forrester GE, Graham NAJ, McClanahan TR (in press) Marine reserves as linked social-ecological systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 107: 18262-18265 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/02/16/0908266107.abstract

MacNeil MA, Graham NAJ, Cinner JE, Dulvy NK, Loring PA, Jennings S, Polunin NVC, Fisk AT, McClanahan TR (in press) Transitional states in marine fisheries: adapting to cope with predicted global change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365: 3753-3763
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1558/3753.full

Graham NAJ, Spalding MD, Sheppard CRC (2010) Reef shark declines in remote atolls highlight the need for multi-faceted conservation action. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 20: 543-548 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.1116/abstract

MacNeil MA, Graham NAJ (2010) Enabling regional management in a changing climate through Bayesian meta-analysis of a large-scale disturbance. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19: 412-421 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123276140/abstract

Cinner, JE, McClanahan, TR, Daw, TM, Graham, NAJ, Maina, J, Wilson, SK, Hughes, TP (2009) Linking social and ecological systems to sustain coral ref fisheries. Current Biology 19: 206-212
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(08)01572-8

MacNeil, MA, Graham, NAJ, Polunin, NVC, Kulbicki, M, Galzin, R, Harmelin-Vivien, M, Rushton, SP (2009) Hierarchical drivers of reef-fish metacommunity structure. Ecology 90: 252-264
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/07-0487.1

Wilson, SK, Fisher, R, Pratchett, MS, Graham, NAJ, Dulvy, NK, Turner, RA, Cakacaka, A, Polunin, NVC, Rushton, SP (2008) Explotation and habitat degradation as agents of change within coral reef fish communities. Global Change Biology 14: 2796-2809 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121462861/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Nyström, M, Graham, NAJ, Lokrantz, J, Norström, A (2008) Capturing the cornerstones of coral reef resilience: linking theory to practice. Coral Reefs 27: 795-809
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y736137635618158/

Graham, NAJ, McClanahan, TR, MacNeil, MA, Wilson, SK, Polunin, NVC, Jennings, S, Chabanet, P, Clark, S, Spalding, MD, Letourneur, Y, Bigot, L, Galzin, R, Öhman, MC, Garpe, KC, Edwards, AJ and Sheppard, CRC (2008). Climate warming, marine protected areas and the ocean-scale integrity of coral reef ecosystems. PLoS ONE 3(8): e3039.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003039

McClanahan TR, Cinner JE, Maina J, Graham NAJ, Daw TM, Stead SM, Wamukota A, Brown K, Ateweberhan M, Venus V, Polunin NVC (2008) Conservation action in a changing climate. Conservation Letters 1: 53-59.       http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120696730/abstract

Pratchett, MS, Munday, PL, Wilson, SK, Graham, NAJ, Cinner, JE, Bellwood, DR, Jones, GP, Polunin, NVC and McClanahan, TR (2008). Effects of climate induced coral bleaching on coral reef fishes; ecological and economic consequences. Oceanography and Marine Biology 46: 251-296.

Graham, NAJ (2007). Ecological versatility and the decline of coral feeding fishes following climate driven coral mortality. Marine Biology 153(2): 119-127.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-007-0786-x

Graham, NAJ, McClanahan, TR, Letourneur, Y and Galzin, R (2007). Anthropogenic stressors, inter-specific competition and enso effects on a mauritian coral reef. Environmental Biology of Fishes 78(1): 57-69.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10641-006-9077-5

Graham, NAJ, Wilson, SK, Jennings, S, Polunin, NVC, Robinson, J, Bijoux, JP and Daw, TM (2007). Lag effects in the impacts of mass coral bleaching on coral reef fish, fisheries, and ecosystems. Conservation Biology 21(5): 1291-1300.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00754.x

McClanahan, TR, Graham, NAJ, Calnan, JM and MacNeil, MA (2007). Toward pristine biomass: Reef fish recovery in coral reef marine protected areas in Kenya. Ecological Applications 17(4): 1055-1067.
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/06-1450

Wilson SK, Graham NAJ, Pratchett MS, Jones GP, Polunin NVC (2006) Multiple disturbances and the global degradation of coral reefs: are reef fishes at risk or resilient? Global Change Biology 12: 2220-2234.      http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118575635/abstract

Graham, NAJ, Wilson, SK, Jennings, S, Polunin, NVC, Bijoux, JP and Robinson, J (2006). Dynamic fragility of oceanic coral reef ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103(22): 8425-8429. http://www.pnas.org/content/103/22/8425.abstract

Graham, NAJ, Dulvy, NK, Jennings, S and Polunin, NVC (2005). Size-spectra as indicators of the effects of fishing on coral reef fish assemblages. Coral Reefs 24(1): 118-124.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00338-004-0466-y

Graham, NAJ, Evans, RD and Russ, GR (2003). The effects of marine reserve protection on the trophic relationships of reef fishes on the Great Barrier Reef. Environmental Conservation 30(2): 200-208. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=164185