Terence P. Hughes (born 1956, in

Dublin, Ireland Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

) is a professor of

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

James Cook University James Cook University (JCU) is a public university in North Queensland, Australia. The second oldest university in Queensland, JCU is a teaching and research institution. The university's main campuses are located in the tropical cities of Cair ...

Queensland, Australia Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, ...

. He is known for research on the global

coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to loss of Symbiosis, symbiotic algae and Photosynthesis, photosynthetic pigments. This loss of pigment can be caused by various stressors, such as changes in water temperature, light, ...

event caused by

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' 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 and Director of the

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

(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 a subfield in ecology that uses a methodological approach that investigates the empirical patterns and mechanistic processes by which the particulate components of complex ecological systems generate emergent structures and dynamics ...

and

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

, 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 sur ...

, climate change, identifying safe

planetary boundaries Planetary boundaries are a framework to describe limits to the impacts of human activities on the Earth system. Beyond these limits, the environment may not be able to continue to self-regulate. This would mean the Earth system would leave th ...

for

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body ** This includes physical developments such as growth, and also development of the brain * Developmental psychology * Development theory * Human development (economics) * Human Develo ...

, and on transformative governance of the sea in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, the Galapagos Islands,

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northea ...

and the

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

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

Education and career

Hughes was awarded a PhD in

Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

and

Evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

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

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

life histories, phase-shifts and the resilience of

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

, Santa Barbara (1984-1990) before moving to

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 Soci ...

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 group ...

science. He has been awarded the

Centenary Medal The Centenary Medal is an award which was created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the centenary of the Federation of Australia and to recognise "people who made a contribution to Australian society or g ...

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, originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum. is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney, William Street, Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, New South Wales. It is the oldest natural ...

Eureka Sherman Prize for Environmental Science, a 2012

Australian Laureate Fellowship The Australian Laureate Fellowship is an Australian professorial research fellowship awarded by the Australian Research Council. Fellows are chosen each year for five-year awards. In 2023 8 industry-focused Laureate Fellowships were awarded for the ...

, 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; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

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

'' and

Sense about Science Sense about Science is a United Kingdom charitable organization that promotes the public understanding of science. Sense about Science was founded in 2002 by Lord Taverne, Bridget Ogilvie and others to promote respect for scientific evidence an ...

. 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 Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

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 21st-century Irish biologists Academic staff of James Cook University John Maddox Prize recipients