Research and the Red Sea—A Perfect Combination for Michael Berumen
Walking directly from the office to the shores of the beautiful Red Sea would be a pleasant stroll for anyone, but for Michael Berumen, an assistant professor of marine science and engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the proximity of the Red Sea also provides a perk for his research.
"In any given morning, I can be out on a reef diving and collecting samples, have lunch at my house, be in a very modern lab facility in the afternoon, and teach class in the evening," Prof. Berumen says. "It's a really unique situation that KAUST has such great access to very good coral reefs with such great world-class facilities right on the water."
Prof. Berumen studies coral reef ecosystems, with an emphasis on movement ecology—looking at how fish larvae disperse, at how adult fish move within and among reefs, and at sharks that can swim up to thousands of miles. "When we start talking about movement, we start getting into questions that are of really significant economic and cultural value, mostly because you can easily tie all of this into fisheries and management of reef zones," he says.
Prof. Berumen's team in the Red Sea Research Center is working to help Saudi Arabia come to grips with the impact of overfishing. "When the Saudi fisheries organization comes to us and says, 'We know we have a huge overfishing problem—help us figure out where we can limit fishing to help the stock recover,' we can use genetic techniques to track larval fish movement and suggest important regional source reefs to protect," Prof. Berumen says.
To protect marine life, Prof. Berumen has to find out where a population's new fish originate. Newly hatched larval fish can travel hundreds of kilometers, but they can also find their way back to the reef they were born on. So the right areas need to be protected to make sure the fish populations will be sustained. This sleuthing, coupled with extensive biological studies, will help in developing fisheries plans and marine protected areas for the Red Sea, allowing coastal communities to both maintain their fishing traditions and sustain fish populations.
Prof. Berumen and his team also study whale sharks, which are the largest fish in the world. "Our whale shark tagging program is arguably the largest shark tagging program in the world." The program follows dozens of whale sharks via satellite tracking to gather information about the sharks' habits, which will provide a knowledge base that doesn't currently exist.
"Typically, satellite tagging studies of sharks involve one, two, three individual sharks, and journals accept that," Prof. Berumen says, "because that's what is logistically feasible and most programs can afford. Satellite tags are not cheap." So what is known about whale sharks is usually only inferred from individual case studies.
Prof. Berumen's tracking research hopes to help fill in the knowledge gaps about these fish—where they breed, their reproduction habits, their movement, how old they get, and more. "We're expecting to make a significant contribution to conservation efforts," Prof. Berumen says.
His team will also make a significant contribution to knowledge of Red Sea biodiversity. Many species in the Red Sea are unique to the region, but they haven't been looked at closely. Prof. Berumen and his team hope to find what makes organisms in the Red Sea different from their cousins elsewhere in the world and how those variations came about.
Coral reef ecologists have the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful marine life each time they dive to collect samples for their research, and underwater critters and corals are often documented photographically. But for Prof. Berumen, marine photography is also a hobby that's critical for education and public awareness. "It's really important to share with people and impress upon them how special coral reef systems are," he says. "I never get tired of sharing my enthusiasm for coral reefs." Prof. Berumen's track record proves his point—he visits schools, including KAUST schools, provides educational slide shows to local diving clubs, gives lectures during the KAUST Winter Enrichment Program, and is the scientific advisor for "Desert Seas," a documentary that aired last month on National Geographic Wild.