Dr Didier De Bakker

About me:

I am an ecologist studying how coral reef habitats are changing in response to persistent anthropogenic impacts. My current research focusses on the capacity of modern reef communities in the Gulf of Mexico to support positive net reef growth and structural complexity while keeping pace with rising sea levels.

My doctoral research at the University of Wageningen and the Royal NIOZ focused on characterizing the long-term trajectories of change in the configuration of benthic reef communities in the Dutch Caribbean. As part of this, I have had the opportunity to study the longest running time-series on coral reefs in the world, which includes photos of permanent quadrats that have been collected since the early 1970s.

One of the main goals of my PhD was to study changes in the balance between bioerosion and bioaccretion processes within reef assemblages. This is how I got introduced to the work of Prof. Chris Perry, as we implemented the ReefBudget census approach, that he and his group developed here at the University of Exeter to estimate present day and historical reef carbonate budget states.

I have joined this group in the Geology Department at the University of Exeter in September 2022 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. The project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

While I consider myself a reef ecologist, I am also interested in the chemical processes taking place within reef habitats, marine animal physiology and taxonomy, the modelling of future responses, and the use of molecular research techniques.

Interests:

• Coral reef ecology
• Reef carbonate budgets
• Bioerosion
• Sponge ecology
• Reef biochemistry
• Climate change and reefs
• Long-term time-series
• Benthic Cyanobacterial Mats (BCMs)
• Invertebrate spawing in the Red Sea

Qualifications:

PhD, Coral Reef Ecology, University of Wageningen (Wageningen, The Netherlands)
MSc, Limnology and Oceanography, University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
BSc, Biology, University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)