Terence P. Hughes (born 1956, in Dublin, Ireland) is a professor of marine biology at James Cook University in

Queensland, Australia ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

. He is known for research on the global

coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleaching occurs when coral polyps expel the zooxanthellae ( dinoflagellates that are commonly referred to as a ...

event caused by

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

. ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' dubbed him "Reef sentinel" in 2016 for the global role he plays in applying multi-disciplinary science to securing reef sustainability. He is an

Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow The Australian Laureate Fellowship is an Australia, Australian professorial research fellowship awarded by the Australian Research Council. Up to 17 fellows are chosen each year for five-year awards. Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Georgina Sweet fellows ...

and Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. His research interests encompass

coral reef ecology A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

macroecology Macroecology is the subfield of ecology that deals with the study of relationships between organisms and their environment at large spatial scales to characterise and explain statistical patterns of abundance, distribution and diversity. The term ...

and

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, as well as social-ecological interactions. His recent work has focused on

marine ecology Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 70% of the surf ...

, climate change, identifying safe

planetary boundaries Planetary boundaries is a concept highlighting human-caused perturbations of Earth systems making them relevant in a way not accommodated by the environmental boundaries separating the three ages within the Holocene epoch. Crossing a planetary ...

for

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution Human evoluti ...

, and on transformative governance of the sea in Australia,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, China, the Galapagos Islands,

Gulf of Maine , image = , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = GulfofMaine2.jpg , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Major features of the Gulf of Maine , location = Northeast coast of the ...

and the

Coral Triangle The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in e ...

. His career citations in Google Scholar exceed 88,000.

Education and career

Hughes was awarded a PhD in

Ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

and

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

, Baltimore, USA, in 1984, for his research on

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

life histories, phase-shifts and the resilience of Caribbean coral reefs. Following his PhD, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

, Santa Barbara (1984-1990) before moving to James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. He was appointed Professor in 2000 and established the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in 2005. Hughes has published in excess of 180 peer reviewed publications, so far. The ARC Centre produces greater than 350 publications annually and was recently awarded further funding until 2021.

Awards

In 2001, Hughes was elected to the Fellowship of the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soc ...

for his contribution to

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...

science. He has been awarded the Centenary Medal of Australia for his services to Australian society and marine biology, a Silver Jubilee Award for Excellence by the Australian Marine Science Association, the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...

Eureka Sherman Prize for Environmental Science, a 2012 Australian Laureate Fellowship, and the Darwin Medal by the

International Society for Reef Studies The International Coral Reef Society (ICRS; previously the International Society for Reef Studies) is an international, not-for profit, scientific society dedicated to the conservation of coral reefs through science and understanding. Founded in 19 ...

. In 2014, he was awarded an Einstein Professorship by the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...

. Hughes was joint winner of the 2018 John Maddox Prize, awarded by ''

'' and Sense about Science. In 2018, Hughes was also awarded the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences and the Climate Change Award from th
Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation
In 2019,

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

awarded him with an honorary doctorate. He and Catherine Lovelock were jointly awarded the Suzanne Cory Medal by the Australian Academy of Science in March 2023.

Selected bibliography

* Catastrophes, phase-shifts, and large-scale degradation of a Caribbean coral reef. Hughes, T.P., Science (1994) 265:1547-1551. * Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs. Hughes, T.P., A.H. Baird, D.R. Bellwood, ''et al.'', Science (2003) 301:929-933. * Confronting the coral reef crisis. Bellwood, D.R., T.P. Hughes, C. Folke, and M. Nyström, Nature (2004) 429:827-833. * New paradigms for supporting the resilience of marine ecosystems. Hughes, T.P., D.R. Bellwood, C. Folke, ''et al.'', Trends in Ecology and Evolution (2005) 20:380-386. * Regime-shifts, herbivory and the resilience of coral reefs to climate change. Hughes, T.P., M.J. Rodrigues, D.R. Bellwood, ''et al.'', Current Biology (2007) 17:360-365. * Rising to the challenge of sustaining coral reef resilience. Hughes, T.P., N. Graham, J.B.C. Jackson, ''et al.'', Trends in Ecology and Evolution (2010) 25:633-642. * Living dangerously on borrowed time during unrecognized regime shifts. Hughes, T.P., C. Linares, V. Dakos, ''et al.'', Trends in Ecology and Evolution (2012) 28:149-155. *Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals. Hughes, T.P., and 43 co-authors. ''Nature'' (2017) 543: 373–377. *Global warming transforms coral reef ecosystems. Hughes, T.P. and 14 co-authors. ''Nature'' (2017) 556: 492 – 496. *Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Hughes T.P., and 24 co-authors. ''Science'' (2018) 359: 80 – 83. *Ecological memory modifies the cumulative impact of recurrent climate extremes. Hughes TP, and 12 co-authors. ''Nature Climate Change'' (2019) 9: 40–43. *Global warming impairs stock-recruitment dynamics of corals. Hughes T.P., and 17 co-authors. (2019). ''Nature'' 568, 387–390.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Terry Living people 1956 births Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Irish biologists Academic staff of James Cook University John Maddox Prize recipients