Event Date
Join us on August 5th for "Engineering Ecosystems for Coral Recruitment and Survival", a Community Lecture and Reception featuring our 2025 speaker, Linda Wegley Kelly, Ph.D., an Associate Research Scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Attendees can join us virtually through Zoom or in person at the Bodega Marine Laboratory. In-person attendees can also sign up to arrive early for a free, docent-led tour of the laboratory and stay after the lecture for a reception.
About the Lecture:
The need for innovative solutions to restore marine habitats has never been more crucial. Recent advances in coral breeding and larval propagation can help preserve genetic diversity as it creates thousands of new coral genotypes at a time, but it also presents major challenges as settlement in the lab remains low and ~98% of lab-raised corals die within two years of outplanting. On the reef, corals reproduce by generating swimming larvae that disperse via ocean currents and then navigate to permanent settlement sites. However, very little is known about the biology, chemistry, and physics of coral reef surfaces and materials, all of which influence larval attachment and the growth of juveniles. The goal of this presentation is to introduce the major challenges of coral restoration and present new collaborative research that incorporates materials science and bioengineering with marine microbiology and chemical biology to improve the survivorship of juvenile corals.
About Our Featured Speaker:
Linda Wegley Kelly, Ph.D.
Associate Research Scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Research in the Wegley Lab combines molecular approaches with chemistry and microbial ecology to discover how microbes interact with local biogeochemistry to influence the function of marine ecosystems. Dr. Wegley is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, the Builders Initiative, and the University of California to study the functional roles of microbes in marine holobionts, coral reef waters, and kelp forests.
Also in this series:
On Monday, August 4th from 11am-12pm, Linda Wegley Kelly, Ph.D. will present “Microbial biogeochemistry in coastal marine systems”
This is a research seminar intended for an academic audience. It is open to the public, and no RSVP is needed to attend in person.
About the Dr. Donald L. Mykles Distinguished Lecture Series:
The Dr. Donald L. Mykles Distinguished Lecture Series annually recognizes a leader in the field of integrative biology in marine or coastal environments by inviting them to deliver a research seminar and community lecture at the Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) of the University of California Davis. The Mykles Distinguished Lecture (MDL) will illustrate how integrative approaches to biology can be used to address questions that span levels of organization within organisms, across organisms, within ecosystems, and/or over evolutionary time. The MDL invitation to BML honors the recipient in a way that advances the academic community at BML and establishes enduring links between awardees and the BML community. The MDL Series was established through a generous gift from Don’s wife Vicki and son Christopher Mykles.
Make a Gift to Support the Lecture Series
About Dr. Donald L. Mykles:
Dr. Donald L. Mykles completed his Ph.D. at Bodega Marine Laboratory in the 1970s when the lab was a UC Berkeley field site. Don and his wife, Vicki, still visit BML several times each year, where Don works on local crabs for his NSF grant projects. As Northern California natives, they both enjoy connecting with friends and appreciate the exquisite natural beauty of Bodega Bay.
2024 Featured Lecturer
Dr. Adrienne Correa
Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley
Adrienne Correa is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley. She first learned to scuba dive in graduate school, while collecting invasive ants in the Hawaiian Islands. Adrienne's research turned to the ocean shortly thereafter, and today she explores the role of microbes in the health of coral reefs that are experiencing rapid environmental change. She serves on the Advisory Council for the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a home to California’s corals. Her research and teaching have taken her to coral reefs around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, Australia, Belize, Panama, and the South Pacific.
2023 Featured Lecturer
Dr. Melissa Pespeni
Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Vermont
Melissa Pespeni is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Vermont, Director of Quantitative and Evolutionary STEM Training (QuEST) PhD program, and recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Dr. Pespeni is an evolutionary biologist whose work aims to understand the genetic bases of complex traits and how organisms adapt to current and future environmental variation. She publishes in the leading journals of her field including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications, and Proceedings of the Royal Society, and has given several keynote seminars at premier, international conferences. As the Director of QuEST, Dr. Pespeni aims to shift the dialogue in higher education to focus on diverse lived experiences as assets and to offer broader training opportunities in graduate education such as improv for science communication and applied internships with non-academic partners. Dr. Pespeni received her Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University and a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Critical Gender Studies from the University of California, San Diego.
Past Events:
You can view recordings of past lectures here: