By Georgia Jackson, College of Arts and Sciences
John Parkinson, an assistant professor in the University of South Florida’s College of Arts and Sciences, joined dozens of researchers, conservationists, advocates, policy experts and filmmakers at the Tampa Bay Youth Ocean Summit on March 1 to share his insights into the heat tolerant corals he has been studying — and how these special populations might hold the key to conservation efforts.
“When we talk about ecosystems that are impacted by climate change, the two big ones are coral reefs and the arctic,” said Parkinson, who teaches in the Department of Integrative Biology. “Arctic temperatures are technically warming at a faster rate, but I'd argue coral reefs are closer to the brink of collapse.”
Parkinson speaks to students who attended the Tampa Bay Ocean Summit about coral reef restoration.
Parkinson was horrified when, in 2023, Florida's Coral Reef — which stretches almost 350 miles from the Dry Tortugas to the St. Lucie Inlet and is the only living barrier reef in the continental United States — experienced the worst coral bleaching event on record. Unusually hot waters arrived early in July and stayed through October, stressing the corals and causing them to pale as they lost their symbiotic algae. Many colonies died.
“These severe marine heatwaves just didn’t happen decades ago,” Parkinson said. “Now they’re practically annual events.”
Parkinson spoke to over 150 university students from across the state who attended the summit to hear presentations on a variety of ocean-related subjects, including how to reduce plastic consumption on university campuses.
“These are future marine scientists, and they’re inheriting a planet that’s worse off than what I encountered when I was their age,” Parkinson said. “It’s important for them not to get overwhelmed by the state of things. There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there, and rightfully so, but there's still a lot we can do to help.”
Parkinson is an advocate of implementing more intense interventions — including importing corals from already hot environments — to preserve and maintain existing ecosystems.
“I like to tell people when they’re pessimistic and sad about the fate of coral reefs that the ecosystem will survive in some form. We’re just going to see a change in reef composition,” Parkinson said. “They’re not going to be the same reefs we’re used to. We have changed the environment so much that we can’t expect to restore exactly what was there before. The task before us now is to maintain a version of a reef that still provides ecological goods and services to humans and other organisms — things like biodiversity, fish nursery habitats and coastline protection. That’s what we’re trying to do.
“Reefs are degrading so fast that the risk of doing nothing is a lot worse than the risk of doing something imperfect.”
Joseph Dituri, an associate professor in the Morsani College of Medicine; Brian Barnes, an assistant research professor in the College of Marine Science; and Lena Nunez Castillo, a USF student who works in Parkinson’s lab, also presented their research at the summit, which was initially slated for October, but was rescheduled due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“Everybody needs the ocean, and the ocean needs the efforts of everyone,” said Reaghan Ard, a summit volunteer and USF student majoring in environmental science and animal biology. “I hope that attendees of the Youth Ocean Summit feel compelled and prepared to restore and maintain what is Earth's most valuable resource.”