The Gulf of California is a global marine biodiversity hotspot subjected to compounding anthropogenic stressors, including an increased frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves. These thermal events cause widespread habitat degradation and threaten the viability of the region’s artisanal fisheries.

To meet these conservation challenges, a focus on areas resistant to ongoing climate change—known as climate change refugia—is increasingly suggested as a critical strategy for short- to medium-term management. As outlined by Morelli et al. (2016) in “Refugia for Climate Adaptation,” managing such areas is an important option for conservation. However, a lack of clarity on how to systematically identify and manage marine refugia often hampers practitioners. This project directly addresses this gap by developing and applying a novel framework to operationalize the concept of refugia for climate adaptation in a coastal marine system.

Project Objectives

This project is designed to develop a scientifically-grounded and repeatable framework for guiding conservation in a warming ocean. Our work is organized around three core objectives:

1. 1. Identify Potential Climate Refugia: We will first characterize the nearshore thermal environment across a network of reef sites. The goal is to generate a detailed understanding of local ocean temperature patterns to pinpoint specific locations that are naturally buffered from extreme heat and function as potential climate change refugia.
   2. Evaluate the Ecological Role of Refugia: Next, we will conduct comprehensive surveys of marine biodiversity and ecosystem health at each site. This will allow us to test the key hypothesis that areas identified as thermal refugia support more robust and complex biological communities, thereby validating their higher conservation value.
   3. Develop Climate-Adaptive Management Tools: Finally, we will synthesize our findings into an analytical framework that assesses the relative resilience of each site. The ultimate objective is to translate this complex ecological data into clear and actionable recommendations for our local partners, enabling them to strategically enhance the climate resilience of their marine protected area network.

Scientific Innovation and Broader Impacts

This research moves beyond documenting climate change impacts to proactively identifying and prioritizing areas of inherent resilience. Its primary innovation lies in developing a quantitative and replicable methodology for operationalizing the management of climate change refugia, a critical need identified in current climate adaptation science.