Overview

Chris Perry is a Professor in Tropical Coastal Geoscience at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on addressing questions about the response of coral reefs and reef-related landforms, such as coral reef islands, to the impacts of environmental and climatic change. Increasingly this work has been focussed on the consequences of these impacts, and on resultant reef species transitions and biodiversity shifts, for the geo-ecological functions that reefs sustain. These functions include the maintenance of reef structures and reef structural complexity, reef accretion potential and reef-derived sediment supply. Central to addressing these challengers has been the development of two reef status and monitoring tools, ReefBudget and the more recent SedBudget methodologies. Both are census-based and have potential to be integrated with wider reef monitoring programmes. ReefBudget has been designed to generate site-specific estimates of rates of biological carbonate production and erosion from which carbonate budgets can be derived. SedBudget generates estimates of biogenic reef-derived sediment production. These tools have been used to assess the implications of ecological change on reef growth potential and island sediment supply, have underpinned novel assessments of within-country and across region carbonate budget states, and been used to explore the impacts of the 2015-16 bleaching event on reef carbonate budgets.

Chris has previously been involved in extensive work exploring coral reef and reef island development in different regions, and work on reefs associated with more marginal (especially high turbidity) conditions. His interests in reef islands are increasingly focused on the challenges around future habitability under climate change.  

Chris has worked extensively within both the Indo-Pacific (Australia, Chagos, Rodrigues, Mozambique, Maldives) and Caribbean regions (Jamaica, Mexico, Barbados, The Bahamas, Bonaire, Belize), and his research has primarily been funded through the UK Research Councils (specifically NERC), The Bertarelli Foundation, The Leverhulme Trust, The Royal Society, and Nuffield. He has published > 140 peer-reviewed papers and edited book chapters, and co-authored 1 undergraduate textbook.

Broad research specialisms:

Coral reef and reef island geomorphology, tropical marine carbonate production, environmental impacts on coral reef growth, reef and mangrove sediment records of environmental change

Qualifications

BSc Geology (Derby)
PhD Marine Geoscience (Reading)

Links

• ReefBudget project
• SedBudget project

Research group links

• Cryosphere, Coastal and River Dynamics

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Research

Research interests

My research addresses questions about the response of coral reefs and reef landforms to environmental and climatic change. Much of my early research was focused on quantifying the process controls on Holocene carbonate sediment and reef framework production and preservation. This work was subsequently extended to encompass the development of high-resolution framework and sedimentary indictors of reef depositional environments and events. My recent research has focused on applied aspects of contemporary reef geomorphology that seeks to address issues associated with the effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbance, and environmental and climatic change on the functioning, stability and sustainability of tropical coastal and shallow marine sedimentary environments. Key areas of on-going research are thus aimed at:

(1) improving understanding of rates of coral reef carbonate production and marine carbonate sediment production;

(2) quantifying the impacts of environmental change on coral reef growth rates;

(3) improving understanding of reef development in more marginal marine settings, and especially in high turbidity coastal settings; and

(4) quantifying rates and timings of coral reef island development.

Research projects

Current funded research:

Quantifying loss of reef coastal protection benefits under ecological change (funded by the Leverhulme Trust)

Building capacity for monitoring the physical functionality and resilience of coral reef ecosystems along the Mesoamerican Reef (funded by a Royal Society - Newton Advanced Research Fellowship).

Understanding changing capacity of central American reefs to sustain their geo-ecological functions (funded by a GCRF Networking Grant GCRFNGR5\1159)

Implications of nutrient flow and feedbacks across the seabird-island-reef system (funded by the Bertarelli Program in Marine Science)

Previous funded major research projects:

2017-2021 Leverhulme Trust. Predicting the significance of fish carbonates to the marine carbonate cycle.

2017-2021 Natural Environment Research Council. Reef refugia out of the shadows: dynamics of marginal coral reef ecosystems over the past 30 million years in the Coral Triangle.

2017-2018. Global Challenges Research Fund: Resilience Foundation scheme. Building Socio-Ecological Resilience to Coral Reef Degradation in the Islands of the Western Indian Ocean.

2016 NERC Urgency (NE/P007694/1) Quantifying ENSO-related bleaching on nearshore, turbid-zone coral reefs: a test of the turbid-zone reef climate change refugia hypothesis.

2016-2017 The Leverhulme Trust. Research Fellowship: Coral reef carbonate production and reef island vulnerability.

2013-2017. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/K003143/1)  Carbonate sediment production by marine fish: quantifying production across carbonate provinces and applications to global marine carbonate modelling.

2013-2016. NERC-ESPA-DFiD: Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation Programme Grant “Sustainable poverty alleviation from coastal ecosystem services (SPACES): Investigating elasticities, feedbacks and tradeoffs”

2012-2016. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J023329/1) Exploring the hidden shallows: inner-shelf reef growth and future trajectories of reef geomorphic change.

2011-2012. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J005398/1). Rapid assessments of Cyclone Yasi’s impact on nearshore coral reefs and resultant sediment records of the event.

2010-2013. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H010092/1). Fish carbonates – their nature and fate within the marine inorganic carbon cycle.

2009-2011. The Leverhulme Trust – International Research Network (F/00426/G). Development of a rapid carbonate budget assessment protocol for coral reefs.

2009-2013. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/G011389/1). Criteria for interpreting carbonate platform drowning histories and resultant diagenetic fabrics: insights from actively subsiding platform margins.

2009-2010. Natural Environment Research Council (NE/G010617/1). The production and fate of fish-derived carbonate crystals in tropical shallow water environments.

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Publications

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External Engagement and Impact

Committee/panel activities

2016 - 2020 Editorial Board Member - Nature Scientific Reports

2013 - present  Member, Natural Environment Research Council, Peer Review College

2013 – 2016  Geological Editor – Coral Reefs

2009 – 2014   Coordinator, Leverhulme Trust International Research Network ‘Developing rapid carbonate budget assessment protocols for coral reefs’

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Teaching

Usual term time office hours (exceptions below):

In office: please book time slot using this LINK )

Online: please book time slot using this LINK )

Please note I am away overseas from Monday 4th March until the end of Term. 

Modules

2023/24

• GEO3246 - Tropical Marine Carbonate Systems: Responses to Environmental Change

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Supervision / Group

Postdoctoral researchers

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni

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Office Hours:

In office: please book time slot using this LINK )

Online: please book time slot using this LINK )

Please note I am away overseas from Monday 4th March until the end of Term. 

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