Dr Gareth Williams
Reader / Director of Impact and Engagement
Affiliations
Links
- https://www.bangor.ac.uk/oceansciences/staff/gareth-williams
Department Home Page - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EfvZsI8AAAAJ&hl=en
Google Scholar Page
Contact info
Room: 303 Craig Mair Phone: +44(0)1248 382588
E-mail: g.j.williams@bangor.ac.uk Twitter
I graduated in Marine Biology (University of Liverpool) in 2004 and completed an MSc in Marine Environmental Protection (Bangor University) in 2006. I began a PhD in Marine Biology (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) in 2007 in coral disease ecology, combining macroecology, experimental ecology, and histopathology to identify disease baselines and drivers of disease prevalence on Pacific coral reefs. A focus study site of mine was Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited atoll in the Northern Line Islands. After obtaining my PhD in 2011, I was awarded a post-doctoral scholarship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego (UCSD) where I continued to work on the macroecology of Pacific coral reefs. This role at Scripps transitioned into an Assistant Project Scientist position within the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation in 2013. I left Scripps in late 2015 to return to the UK and take up my full-time role within the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University.
I am a marine ecologist specialising in coral reef ecology. My work focuses on the interaction of organisms with their environment, often taking a macroecological approach. I am particularly interested in how human activities and natural biophysical gradients interact to drive community patterns across multiple trophic levels (microbes to sharks) and scales (individual reefs to entire ocean basins). Much of my work incorporates remote coral reefs free from direct human impact, providing key replication at the unimpacted end of an intact-to-degraded ecosystem spectrum. By surveying across extensive geographical areas we address broad questions pertaining to: 1. the human, climatic and oceanographic drivers of coral reef ecosystem structure and function, 2. climate change impacts to coral reef ecosystems, 3. the spatial ecology of coral reefs, and 4. disease dynamics on coral reefs.
Research Areas
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Disease dynamics of Montipora white syndrome within Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii: distribution, seasonality, virulence, and transmissibility
Aeby, G. S., Ross, M., Williams, G., Lewis, T. D. & Work, T. M., 26 Jul 2010, In: Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. 91, 1, p. 1-8Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Localized outbreaks of coral disease on Arabian reefs are linked to extreme temperatures and environmental stressors
Aeby, G., Howells, E., Work, T., Abrego, D., Williams, G. J., Wedding, L., Caldwell, J., Moritsch, M. & Burt, J., Jun 2020, In: Coral Reefs. 39, 3, p. 829-846 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Growth Anomalies on the Coral Genera Acropora and Porites Are Strongly Associated with Host Density and Human Population Size across the Indo-Pacific
Aeby, G. S., Williams, G. J., Franklin, E. C., Haapkyla, J., Harvell, C. D., Neale, S., Page, C. A., Raymundo, L., Vargas-Angel, B., Willis, B. L., Work, T. M. & Davy, S. K., 18 Feb 2011, In: PLoS ONE. 6, 2Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Pathogenesis of a tissue loss disease affecting multiple species of corals along the Florida Reef Tract
Aeby, G. S., Ushijima, B., Campbell, J., Jones, S., Williams, G. J., Meyer, J., Hase, C. & Paul, V., 1 Nov 2019, In: Frontiers in Marine Science. 6, 678.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Patterns of Coral Disease across the Hawaiian Archipelago: Relating Disease to Environment
Aeby, G. S., Williams, G. J., Franklin, E. C., Kenyon, J., Cox, E. F., Coles, S. & Work, T. M., 31 May 2011, In: PLoS ONE. 6, 5Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- E-pub ahead of print
Host density and anthropogenic stress are drivers of variability in dark spot disease in Siderastrea siderea across the Florida Reef Tract
Aeby, G. S., Williams, G. J., Whitall, D., Davies, A., Fromuth, E. & Walker, B. K., 27 Jun 2023, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Bulletin of Marine Science .Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Scale-dependent spatial patterns in benthic communities around a tropical island seascape
Aston, E. A., Williams, G. J., Green, J. A. M., Davies, A. J., Wedding, L. M., Gove, J. M., Jouffray, J-B., Jones, T. T. & Clark, J., Mar 2019, In: Ecography. 42, 3, p. 578-590Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Natural history of coral-algae competition across a gradient of human activity in the Line Islands
Barott, K. L., Williams, G. J., Vermeij, M. J. A., Harris, J., Smith, J. E., Rohwer, F. L. & Sandin, S. A., 2012, In: Marine Ecology Progress Series. 460, p. 1-12Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Impacts and Recovery from Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi on the Great Barrier Reef
Beeden, R., Maynard, J., Puotinen, M., Marshall, P., Dryden, J., Goldberg, J. & Williams, G., 15 Apr 2015, In: PLoS ONE. 10, 4, p. e0121272Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Hawaiʻi Coral Disease database (HICORDIS): species-specific coral health data from across the Hawaiian archipelago
Caldwell, J. M., Burns, J. H. R., Couch, C., Ross, M., Runyon, C., Takabayashi, M., Vargas-Ángel, B., Walsh, W., Walton, M., White, D., Williams, G. & Heron, S. F., Sept 2016, In: Data in Brief. 8, p. 1054-1058Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review