Noelle Lucey

Noelle Lucey is a marine biologist whose research in the Caribbean has brought attention to ocean deoxygenation as a significant driver of the decline of coral reefs.  

Lucey has demonstrated that the depletion of dissolved oxygen is lethal and more widespread than  previously recognized. She developed a multi-stressor framework that examines how oxygen loss  interacts with rising temperatures and ocean acidification — two stressors more commonly discussed —  to help scientists better understand the vulnerability of coral reefs. Her research has provided reef  managers with new information for evaluating the resilience of coral reefs.  

Lucey's fieldwork is rooted in the Caribbean, where she has conducted sustained in-water research at  reef sites in Panama and Puerto Rico. In these locations, she deploys autonomous sensor networks to  document the frequency, duration and intensity of low oxygen events across reef communities. This  long-term monitoring work, combined with controlled experiments at the Isla Mayagüez Marine  Laboratory in Puerto Rico, has revealed that repeated, nightly and severe low-oxygen concentration drives coral bleaching and mortality — independent of an increase in ocean temperature. Lucey also determined that species’ tolerances to low oxygen strongly predicts the composition of coral communities across closely located sites.  

Her identification of locally adapted, hypoxia-tolerant coral populations has direct implications for coral  reef restoration and provides a scientific basis for selecting coral genotypes with the highest probability  of persisting under intensifying climate conditions. As a new assistant professor at the University of  Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, Lucey is building a research program that couples rigorous field science with  conservation practice. She actively mentors the next generation of marine scientists working on one of the most threatened reef systems in the Caribbean.  

Visit her website to learn more.

Photo: Fabiola Alvira