Hunter Lenihan

About

Hunter Lenihan’s primary research interests lie in the fields of applied population and community ecology, especially in connection with fisheries management and restoration. He has collaborated with California fishing communities to design research projects intended to advance habitat-based fisheries management. He is also exploring ecological and oceanographic processes that regulate coral populations, particularly at a long-term project on the island of Moorea, in French Polynesia, with the goal of developing new techniques for coral reef restoration. In addition, Professor Lenihan is working with disease physiologists to isolate and cultivate disease-resistant abalone to be used as part of population enhancement efforts. He has also done extensive research within estuaries, at deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and in polar environments. His overall objective is to generate new ideas and methods for marine resource management and train young scientists interested in community-based research and management.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Geography
• Organic chemistry
• Metallurgy
• Materials science
• Chemistry
• Environmental chemistry
• Fishery
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Size‐dependent mortality of corals during marine heatwave erodes recovery capacity of a coral reef

  Global Change Biology · 2021 · 95 citations

  For many long-lived taxa, such as trees and corals, older, and larger individuals often have the lowest mortality and highest fecundity. However, climate change-driven disturbances such as droughts and heatwaves may fundamentally alter typical size-dependent patterns of mortality and reproduction in these important foundation taxa. Working in Moorea, French Polynesia, we investigated how a marine heatwave in 2019, one of the most intense marine heatwaves at our sites over the past 30 years, drov…

  PublisherDOI

• Nano and traditional copper and zinc antifouling coatings: metal release and impact on marine sessile invertebrate communities

  Journal of Nanoparticle Research · 2020 · 80 citations

  DOI

• Evidence that spillover from Marine Protected Areas benefits the spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus) fishery in southern California

  Scientific Reports · 2021 · 77 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are designed to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services. Some MPAs are also established to benefit fisheries through increased egg and larval production, or the spillover of mobile juveniles and adults. Whether spillover influences fishery landings depend on the population status and movement patterns of target species both inside and outside of MPAs, as well as the status of the fishery and behavior of the fleet. We tested whether an increase in the lobster pop…

  DOI

• Coral reef structural complexity loss exposes coastlines to waves

  Scientific Reports · 2023-01-30 · 40 citations

  articleOpen access

  Coral reefs offer natural coastal protection by attenuating incoming waves. Here we combine unique coral disturbance-recovery observations with hydrodynamic models to quantify how structural complexity dissipates incoming wave energy. We find that if the structural complexity of healthy coral reefs conditions is halved, extreme wave run-up heights that occur once in a 100-years will become 50 times more frequent, threatening reef-backed coastal communities with increased waves, erosion, and floo…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Coral restoration for coastal resilience: Integrating ecology, hydrodynamics, and engineering at multiple scales

  Ecosphere · 2023 · 39 citations

  Abstract The loss of functional and accreting coral reefs reduces coastal protection and resilience for tropical coastlines. Coral restoration has potential for recovering healthy reefs that can mitigate risks from coastal hazards and increase sustainability. However, scaling up restoration to the large extent needed for coastal protection requires integrated application of principles from coastal engineering, hydrodynamics, and ecology across multiple spatial scales, as well as filling missing…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Fiorenza Micheli

  Stanford University

  129 shared

• Rod Fujita

  Environmental Defense Fund

  98 shared

• Mark Spalding

  University of Cambridge

  98 shared

• Dennis Heinemann

  Marine Mammal Commission

  98 shared

• Robert S. Steneck

  University of Maine

  92 shared

• Elizabeth R. Selig

  91 shared

• Reg Watson

  University of Tasmania

  91 shared

• Helen Fox

  Coral Reef Alliance

  91 shared

Education

• PhD (Marine Science), Marine Science

  University of North Carolina

  1996

• Masters of Science, Marine Science

  Moss Landing Marine Laboratories

  1992

• Bachelor of Science (Conservation of Natural Resources), College of Natural Resources

  University of California Berkeley

  1986

• Associate of Arts, General Education

  Pasadena City College

  1981

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