Science Plan

NCRI's Science Plan

Developed in 2025 as part of NCRI’s Strategic Planning efforts, the Science Plan serves as a guiding framework for NCRI’s research activities. Drawing on the diverse expertise of NCRI’s coral reef scientists and partners, the plan outlines a unified research theme - Dynamics of Modern Reefs - and defines the key scientific questions that will shape NCRI’s future investigations.

The Dynamics of Modern Reefs

NCRI research aims to understand how shifts in benthic community composition have altered coral reef ecosystems and the resulting changes to ecological function, services, stability, and persistence. Coral reefs worldwide are undergoing unprecedented reconfiguration driven by local and global stressors, threatening critical ecosystem services relied upon by hundreds of millions of people. Despite the severity of these impacts, the dynamics of these modern reefs remain poorly understood. Reef transformations manifest differently within and across biogeographic regions. Western Atlantic and Caribbean reefs have experienced decades-long shifts from scleractinian-dominated systems to communities dominated by macroalgae, turf algae, octocorals, and sponges. Indo-Pacific reefs, historically more resilient, are now also experiencing accelerating rates of change with alternative benthic assemblages emerging. Understanding these patterns and their cascading effects is essential for developing effective conservation, management, and restoration strategies.

NCRI research aims to answer three broad questions:

What drives variation in community trajectory on modern reefs?

Under pressure, some reefs remain coral-dominated while others shift to become dominated by sponges, octocorals, macroalgae, turf, etc. NCRI studies the drivers that influence the fate of reef organisms. Specifically, we quantitatively assess the relative importance of constraints to the persistence and recovery of coral populations, from biotic and abiotic effects on symbiosis, survival, growth, and reproduction, and determine whether these could be mitigated through restoration and/or conservation practices. We also quantitatively assess the impacts of anthropogenic stressors on the different life history stages of other reef organisms to explain the different reef trajectories.

2. How do shifts impact ecosystem services?

Coral reefs provide invaluable ecosystem services including recreation, fisheries, food security, biomedical resources, coastal protection, biogeochemical cycling, and water quality. NCRI investigates ecosystem functions and services of modern reefs, including how to maintain function on changing reef ecosystems.

3. How do modern reefs fluctuate temporally and spatially?

As emergent systems, the dynamics of modern reefs are poorly understood. NCRI reports on the status and trends of US coral reefs, and uses empirically informed models to understand their temporal and spatial fluctuations, synthesizing long-term environmental and ecological data to inform reef management.

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