Michael L. Berumen

Michael L. Berumen
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | KAUST · Red Sea Research Center

Ph.D.

About

640
Publications
197,609
Reads
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16,043
Citations
Introduction
Our group is primarily interested in questions of movement ecology of reef organisms, including tracking adult migrations, ontogenetic habitat shifts, and larval dispersal. At the evolutionary end of the connectivity scale, we are also interested in phylogeny and biodiversity studies, particularly with respect to Red Sea fauna. http://reefecology.kaust.edu.sa
Additional affiliations
October 2009 - present
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Position
  • Adjunct Scientist
June 2009 - present
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • http://reefecology.kaust.edu.sa
July 2007 - June 2009
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
July 2002 - March 2007
James Cook University
Field of study
  • Marine Biology
August 1998 - May 2001

Publications

Publications (640)
Article
Full-text available
Marine heatwaves are increasingly common due to human‐induced climate change. Under prolonged thermal stress on coral reefs, corals can undergo bleaching, leading to mass coral mortality and large‐scale changes in benthic community composition. While coral mortality has clear, negative impacts on the body condition and populations of coral‐dependen...
Article
Full-text available
Climate change is imposing multiple stressors on marine life, leading to a restructuring of ecological communities as species exhibit differential sensitivities to these stressors. With the ocean warming and wind patterns shifting, processes that drive thermal variations in coastal regions, such as marine heatwaves and upwelling events, can change...
Preprint
Full-text available
Aim: The Indo-Pacific is the world's largest marine biogeographic region. It is characterised by different degrees of connectivity among its subregions, and harbours the majority of demosponge species currently known to science. Comparisons between several regional sponge faunas have been undertaken in the past, mostly based on identifying the spon...
Article
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Skeletal cores from massive, long-lived coral colonies provide a unique approach to investigating the chronic effects of climate change on coral calcification across decadal to centennial timescales. Here, we show an overall decline in calcification rates during the industrial era, broadly consistent with other studies, based on 148 skeletal cores...
Article
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Understanding how coral reefs respond to disturbances is fundamental to assessing their resistance and resilience, particularly in the context of climate change. Due to the escalating frequency and intensity of coral bleaching events, it is essential to evaluate spatio-temporal responses of coral reef communities to disentangle the mechanisms under...
Article
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Climate change is shifting animal distributions. However, the extent to which future global habitats of threatened marine megafauna will overlap existing human threats remains unresolved. Here we use global climate models and habitat suitability estimated from long-term satellite-tracking data of the world’s largest fish, the whale shark, to show t...
Article
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A new gobiid species is described from ten specimens, 9.2 – 16.7 mm SL, collected from the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. The new species is most similar to Sueviota pyrios from the Gulf of Aqaba in the northern Red Sea. It differs from S. pyrios by having no large red spots on the dorsal and caudal fin elements, no elongate spines in the first dorsal fin,...
Article
In light of the current development of several giga-projects along the Saudi Red Sea coast, understanding the health status of coral reefs is paramount to developing baselines and management strategies to minimize the human impact on these ecosystems. Here, we present an assessment of the diversity, functional redundancy, and vulnerability for cora...
Article
Crustaceans are one of the most widespread and speciose groups of marine organisms, fulfilling multiple ecological roles in numerous ecosystems. On coral reefs, many crustacean species form associations with scleractinian corals. Although the Red Sea is considered a biodiversity hotspot, few studies examined the diversity of coral-associated crusta...
Article
Full-text available
The ability to identify individual animals can provide valuable insights into the behaviour, life history, survivorship, and demographics of wild populations. Photo-identification (photo-ID) uses unique natural markings to identify individuals and can be effective for scalable and non-invasive research on marine fauna. The successful application of...
Article
Full-text available
The occurrence of Megalops cyprinoides (Megalopidae) in the Red Sea has been confirmed through the collection of two specimens by recreational fishers at freshwater inputs in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Meristic and morphometric characters are provided, complemented by molecular COI sequences, which confirm their identification as M. cypri-noides. These...
Article
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The ecological success of shallow water corals hinges on their association with photosynthetic Symbiodiniaceae algae. This is affected by environmental drivers among which sea temperature is pivotal. In 2016, a prolonged heat wave challenged New Caledonia reefs triggering a severe bleaching event. Here, we tracked 72 coral colonies comprising two s...
Article
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Many shark populations are in decline around the world, with severe ecological and economic consequences. Fisheries management and marine protected areas (MPAs) have both been heralded as solutions. However, the effectiveness of MPAs alone is questionable, particularly for globally threatened sharks and rays (‘elasmobranchs’), with little known abo...
Article
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To achieve sustainable shark fisheries, it is key to understand not only the biological drivers and environmental consequences of overfishing, but also the social and economic drivers of fisher behavior. The extinction risk of sharks is highest in coastal tropical waters, where small‐scale fisheries are most prevalent. Small‐scale fisheries provide...
Article
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Understanding how mesopredators partition their diet and the identity of consumed prey can assist in understanding the ecological role predators and prey play in ecosystem trophodynamics. Here, we assessed the diet of three common coral reef mesopredators; Pseudochromis flavivertex , Pseudochromis fridmani , and Pseudochromis olivaceus from the fam...
Article
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In many tropical nations, coastal communities seek to manage their sea cucumber fisheries by establishing locally managed marine areas on their traditional fishing grounds. These managed areas can protect spawning stocks, however the extent to which they help to replenish nearby sea cucumber fisheries is debated, as nothing is known about the scale...
Article
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An essential component of the coral reef animal diversity is the species hidden in crevices within the reef matrix, referred to as the cryptobiome. These organisms play an important role in nutrient cycling and provide an abundant food source for higher trophic levels, yet they have been largely overlooked. Here, we analyzed the distribution patter...
Article
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Beneficial microorganisms for corals (BMCs), or probiotics, can enhance coral resilience against stressors in laboratory trials. However, the ability of probiotics to restructure the coral microbiome in situ is yet to be determined. As a first step to elucidate this, we inoculated putative probiotic bacteria (pBMCs) on healthy colonies of Pocillopo...
Article
The Red Sea is a globally significant hotspot of coral reef biodiversity and one of the earliest study sites for modern reef research. Reef science in this basin has been summarized in three review papers, each covering different aspects of the available research in broad terms. To build on these earlier works, greatly expanding both the library of...
Article
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Despite being subject to intensive research and public interest many populations of dolphins, porpoises, and other toothed whales (small cetaceans) continue to decline, and several species are on the verge of extinction. We examine small cetacean status, human activities driving extinction risk, and whether research efforts are addressing priority...
Article
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Cryptobenthic reef fshes (CRFs) are often neglected in reef biodiversity assessments, trophodynamic studies, and biomass models. Tis oversight is due to the challenges associated with recording them in traditional underwater visual surveys and the scarcity of literature detailing their life history, ecology, and body growth parameters. Given their...
Article
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Globally, groupers (Serranidae) are commercially important fish species. Hybridization within this family has been reported in captivity and natural environments, usually among congeneric species. However, intergeneric hybridization has been reported only occasionally. Given the commercial interest in these fish, artisanal or recreational fishermen...
Preprint
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The mutualism between clownfishes (or anemonefishes) and their giant host sea anemones are among the most immediately recognizable animal interactions on the planet and have attracted a great deal of popular and scientific attention. However, our evolutionary understanding of this iconic symbiosis comes almost entirely from studies on clownfishes-...
Article
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The coastal waters of the Arabian Peninsula include a heterogeneous marine region comprising the Persian/Arabian Gulf and Sea of Oman at its northeastern boundary and the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea at its southern and western boundary. The environment within this region shifts from highly variable coral cover and extreme temperatures wi...
Article
Many predator species make regular excursions from near-surface waters to the twilight (200 to 1,000 m) and midnight (1,000 to 3,000 m) zones of the deep pelagic ocean. While the occurrence of significant vertical movements into the deep ocean has evolved independently across taxonomic groups, the functional role(s) and ecological significance of t...
Preprint
Full-text available
Beneficial Microorganisms for Corals (BMCs), or probiotics, enhance coral resilience against stressors in laboratory trials, being the only sustainable treatment currently explored to retain threatened native corals. However, the ability of probiotics to restructure the coral microbiome in situ is yet to be determined. To elucidate this, we inocula...
Article
Full-text available
Damselfishes (family Pomacentridae) are widely distributed reef-associated marine fishes. The family’s diversity, iconic nesting behaviors, and high environmental adaptability contribute to the popularity of damselfishes as aquarium species, tourist attractions, and model scientific study organisms. In the present study, we conducted a series of in...
Preprint
Full-text available
Despite being subject to intensive research and public interest populations of dolphins, porpoises, and other toothed whales continue to decline, and several species are on the verge of extinction. We examine small cetacean status, human activities driving extinction risk, and whether research efforts are addressing priority threats. We estimate th...
Article
Full-text available
Managing marine nonindigenous species (mNIS) is challenging, because marine environments are highly connected, allowing the dispersal of species across large spatial scales, including geopolitical borders. Cross-border inconsistencies in biosecurity management can promote the spread of mNIS across geopolitical borders, and incursions often go unnot...
Article
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Sea turtles are migratory with nesting and foraging areas in distinct and often widely separated habitats. Telemetry has been a vital tool for tracking sea turtle migrations between these areas, but tagging efforts are often focused on only a few large rookeries in a given region. For instance, turtle tagging in the Red Sea has been focused in the...
Article
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Temporal patterns in spawning and juvenile recruitment can have major effects on population size and the demographic structure of coral reef fishes. For harvested species, these patterns are crucial in determining stock size and optimizing management strategies such as seasonal closures. For the commercially important coral grouper (Plectropomus sp...
Preprint
Full-text available
Monitoring animal behavior can facilitate conservation efforts by providing key insights into wildlife health, population status, and ecosystem function. Automatic recognition of animals and their behaviors is critical for capitalizing on the large unlabeled datasets generated by modern video devices and for accelerating monitoring efforts at scale...
Article
Full-text available
Marine vegetated habitats such as seagrass, mangroves, and macroalgae are common along tropical coastlines globally and provide habitats for a diversity of fishes, including juvenile fish and species found on coral reefs. Understanding the use of these habitats by different fish species and life stages is fundamental to spatial planning, fisheries...
Preprint
Full-text available
The ability to identify individual animals can provide valuable insights into the behaviour, life history, survivorship, and demographics of wild populations. Photo-identification (photo-ID) uses unique natural markings to identify individuals and can be effective for scalable and non-invasive research on marine fauna. The successful application of...
Presentation
Full-text available
The Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus is considered one of the most endangered species of marine mammal globally. The Madeira archipelago (NE Atlantic) represents the last refuge of M. monachus in the European Atlantic, with only 20 individuals thought to remain. Prey availability has been identified as one of the main concerns regarding th...
Article
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The family Euphylliidae consists of reef-building zooxanthellate scleractinian corals distributed across the Indo-Pacific. Seven extant genera comprising a total of 22 valid species are currently recognised. Recent studies have re-organised the taxonomy of the family at the genus level based on molecular and morphological data, including a comprehe...
Article
Full-text available
Biodiversity inventories and monitoring techniques for marine fishes often overlook small (<5 cm), bottom‐associated (‘cryptobenthic’) fishes, and few standardized, comparative assessments of cryptobenthic fish communities exist. We sought to develop a standardized, quantitative survey method for cryptobenthic fishes that permits their sampling acr...
Article
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Macroalgae canopies are common in tropical coastlines, and can be feeding grounds for coral reef fishes. We investigated whether fish transfer algal material from Sargassum-dominated macroalgae habitats to coral reefs by collecting gut contents of two herbivorous fish species (Naso elegans and N. unicornis) from coral reefs in the central Red Sea....
Article
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(1) Background: Plastic pollution is a major environmental concern confronting marine animals. Sea turtles are considered a bio-indicator of plastic pollution, but there is little information regarding plastic ingestion by turtles in the Red Sea. With large-scale development projects being built along the Saudi Arabian coast, it is important to hav...
Article
Full-text available
Background Hawksbill turtles ( Eretmochelys imbricata ) are Critically Endangered throughout their global range, and concerningly little is known about this species in the Red Sea. With large-scale coastal development projects underway in the northern Red Sea, it is critical to understand the movement and habitat use patterns of hawksbill turtles i...
Article
Full-text available
In November 2020, we observed several individuals and collected one juvenile of an unidentified anthiadine fish (Serranidae) between depths of 250 and 307 m near vertical walls of rocky reefs in the northern Red Sea. Further morphological and molecular analyses revealed that the collected specimen matches Sacura boulengeri, a species previously rep...
Article
Full-text available
This report provides the first confirmed identifications of wahoo ( Acanthocybium solandri ) and striped marlin ( Kajikia audax ) in the Red Sea, expanding the known ranges of these species into the basin. Potential mechanisms responsible for the lack of regional documentation of the two species are further discussed. These findings illustrate the...
Article
Aim Several marine biogeographical provinces meet at the Arabian Peninsula. Where and how these junctions affect species is poorly understood. We herein aimed to identify the barriers to dispersal and how these shape fish populations, leading to differing biogeographies despite shared habitat and co‐ancestry. Taxon Dascyllus marginatus (endemic) a...
Preprint
Full-text available
Marine vegetated habitats such as seagrass, mangroves, and macroalgae are common in tropical coastlines globally, providing habitats for a diversity of organisms. Many tropical fish use these habitats, including juvenile fish and species found on coral reefs. Understanding the use of these habitats by different fish species and life stages is funda...
Article
Full-text available
Ocean warming is leading to more frequent coral bleaching events. However, cold stress can also induce bleaching in corals. Here, we report observations of a boreal winter bleaching event in January 2020 in the central Red Sea, mainly within a popu- lation of the branching coral Stylophora pistillata on an offshore reef flat. Sea surface temperatur...
Article
Full-text available
The combination of molecular tools, standard surveying techniques, and long-term monitoring programs are relevant to understanding environmental and ecological changes in coral reef communities. Here we studied temporal variability in cryptobenthic coral reef communities across the continental shelf in the central Red Sea spanning 6 years (three sa...
Article
Full-text available
Social hierarchies within groups define the distribution of resources and provide benefits that support the collective group or favor dominant members. The progression of individuals through social hierarchies is a valuable characteristic for quantifying population dynamics. On coral reefs, some clownfish maintain size-based hierarchical communitie...
Article
Full-text available
The Red Sea is particularly biodiverse, hosting high levels of endemism and numerous populations whose extinction risk is heightened by their relative isolation. Elasmobranchs and sea turtles have likely suffered recent declines in this region, although data on their distribution and biology are severely lacking, especially on the eastern side of t...
Article
Full-text available
Understanding species-specific resource requirements is paramount in managing and protecting biodiversity in a world where environmental quality is in decline. Dietary data can inform predator–prey relationships and how changes in prey availability impact different species. However, for many coral reef fishes, prey and predatory events can be diffi...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the large size and economic value of the species, populations of oceanic manta ray ( Mobula birostris ) are often poorly studied and almost completely undescribed in the Red Sea. Here, photo‐identification (photo‐ID) was used to provide the first description of M. birostris movement patterns and population demographics for the northern Red...
Article
Full-text available
Background Anthropogenic sources can lead to the accumulation of heavy metals in marine organisms through ingestion, absorption, or inhalation. For sea turtle embryos, heavy metals can be absorbed into the egg from the incubation environment or be maternally transferred to the offspring causing neurological, reproductive, and developmental problems...
Article
Full-text available
Demographic analyses offer insight into the state of a population. Here, we surveyed different reef flat zones (exposed, midreef and sheltered) of six reefs over a cross-shelf gradient to characterize the population structure of Stylophora pistillata, a coral species which dominates reef flats in the central Red Sea. Phototransects were conducted a...