About me:

Chris Perry is a Professor in Tropical Coastal Geoscience at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on addressing questions about the response of tropical coastal and shallow marine ecosystems (specifically coral reefs and 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 within 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 is also actively involved in research assessing the impacts of climate change, specifically coral bleaching, on reef geo-ecological functions, and has active research programmes assessing reef island resilience and adapatatyion capacity to future climate stressors. 

Chris has also previously been involved in extensive work exploring coral reefs associated with more marginal (especially high turbidity) conditions. 

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 > 150 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