Stephen obtained his B.Sc in marine biology and biotechnology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, an Advanced Technical Diploma in Geographic Information Systems from the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and a Master’s degree in Zoology from the University of British Columbia, where his research focused on terrestrial and oceanographic predictors of Steller sea lion habitat in the north Pacific. He has worked with the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre and the Vancouver Museum, and spent several years in the private sector as a wildlife biologist with an environmental consulting firm. His current research interest centres on spatial ecological modeling and impacts of climate change.

ABSTRACT:

Climate change poses a dual threat to coral reefs in the form of increased ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. However, the future state and health of reef ecosystems depends not only on climate change scenarios, but also on the trajectory of existing natural and anthropogenic stressors at a local scale. My thesis aims to identify the types of stressors that are most likely to influence the condition of the Great Barrier Reef, and how these stressors interact to mitigate or enhance each other. Furthermore, I plan to construct models that will describe how ecosystem structure may change in the face of multiple stressors, and compare these models against existing models of coral bleaching and disease to determine whether they offer novel insights or enhanced predictive ability of these events. Finally, I plan to examine how effective different local management strategies may be in mitigating the effects of global climate change.