Kelsey Archer Barnhill
Thesis title: Cold-Water Coral Reef Growth and Loss in a Changing Ocean

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences
Year of study: 1
- School of GeoSciences
- Changing Oceans Research Group
Contact details
- Email: kelsey.barnhill@ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Address
- Street
-
Grant Institute
James Hutton Road
King's Buildings - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH9 3FE
Qualifications
Master of Science: Ecology - Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Bachelor of Arts: Geological Sciences - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Responsibilities & affiliations
- Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society
- International Coral Reef Society
- The Geological Society
- British Ecological Society
- Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology
Research summary
My PhD research, Cold-water Coral Reef Growth and Loss in a Changing Ocean, focuses on climate-change induced impacts to deep sea reef ecosystems. Through using laboratory mesocosms to run year-long experiments on live corals and coral skeletons, my work will allow scientists to better understand physiological and structural responses of Lophelia pertusa to ocean acidification, warming, and deoxygenation. These results will be combined with ROV footage analysis quantifying the ratio of alive to dead corals to create carbonate budget models to predict reef futures in projected ocean scenarios.
Barnhill KA, Bahr KD. (2019) Coral Resilience at Malauka’a Fringing Reef, Kane’ohe Bay, O’ahu after 18 years. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 7:311. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/7/9/311