Wally Rich
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reefwally.bsky.social
Wally Rich
@reefwally.bsky.social
Wisconsinite 🧀 in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦
Postdoc at KAUST studying coral reefs of the Red Sea
Reposted by Wally Rich
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
November 24, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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/...

⬇️🧵
September 8, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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
July 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Wally Rich
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon
June 14, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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.
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…
news.mongabay.com
April 24, 2025 at 8:18 AM
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 😅
March 20, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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! 🧪🌊
March 19, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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...
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…
latitude.plos.org
March 7, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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
February 28, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Read about our new paper on temperature logger best practices in the Latitude blog post! 🌊🦑
January 31, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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...
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…
latitude.plos.org
January 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Check out the KAUST article about our recent paper on temperature logger best practices 🦑🌊

discovery.kaust.edu.sa/en/article/2...
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.
discovery.kaust.edu.sa
January 20, 2025 at 5:35 AM
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!
Extinct-In-The-Wild Birds Released Into Wild For First Time In 40 Years

"Global conservation partnership releases the first captive-bred population of Guam kingfishers into the wilds of Palmyra Atoll."

by @GrrlScientist via Medium

#conservation #Guam🇬🇺 #birds🦉#SciComm🧪 medium.com/grrlscientis...
January 16, 2025 at 7:05 AM
🚨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...
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...
journals.plos.org
December 28, 2024 at 6:37 PM
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 😞 🌊🦑
December 15, 2024 at 10:53 AM
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 🦑🌊
December 8, 2024 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Wally Rich
🎊 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! 🪸🌊
November 17, 2024 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Wally Rich
Here is a coral reef science starter pack! go.bsky.app/Qo5Gh2H
November 9, 2024 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Wally Rich
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
November 3, 2024 at 12:12 PM
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 🌊
October 23, 2024 at 8:46 AM