The University of Miami was awarded $1.8 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine how climate stressors will impact South Florida's coastal and marine ecosystems.
The project, co-led by the university's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, will study areas such as the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the southwest Florida shelf. Research will assess the effect of stressors like ocean warming, acidification, harmful algal blooms, hypoxia and pollutants.
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“Previous and current research tends to focus on one individual impact to a species and ecosystem," said Ana Palacio, co-principal investigator and assistant scientist at the Rosenstiel School’s NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies. "This research is vitally important because marine ecosystems are facing many different stressors."
The research team will conduct experiments on 16 key reef species, including corals, seagrass, sargassum and sponges. Resource managers will use the information to understand how stressors sparked by climate change will affect those ecosystems and communities that rely on them.
Those communities include many South Floridians. Coastal ecosystems are a draw for the tourism industry, which generates billions of dollars a year and supports thousands of jobs.
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The Biscayne Bay alone generated $64 billion in economic output in 2022, Miami-Dade County reports. A variety of commercial and recreational activities that take place on the bay – including boating, fishing and activity at PortMiami — collectively supported 448,000 jobs and provided $24 billion in income to local residents.
“Our environment is our economy," Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference about the bay's economic impact.
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