2020 Student Fellowship Recipient

Student Research Fellowship

Kevin Bruce

Kevin Bruce

MSc Candidate, UVic Department of Biology

Project title: The fluid backbone of coral reefs: changes in reef structure through a climate-change induced mass coral mortality event

My MSc research seeks to examine coral reef structure changes off Kiritimati (Christmas Island) following the extensive bleaching caused by the 2015-2016 climate change-amplified El Niño, and to quantify the contribution of different coral morphologies to a variety of habitat complexity metrics. I am quantifying reef structural complexity using novel Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry techniques.

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Bruce surveying corals during a previous expedition to Kiritimati