Lauren Toth, Ph.D.
Lauren Toth is a Research Physical Scientist at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida.
I study the impacts of natural and anthropogenic environmental change on coral-reef ecosystems. My research combines geological and modern records to quantify the complex processes and environmental controls that determine the state and function of reefs over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. I approach each problem from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together knowledge and techniques from a variety of fields to develop a holistic understanding of reefs’ environmental setting and ecology. A central focus of my research is to provide new knowledge that is directly applicable to coral-reef management and restoration.
Professional Experience
Geology Topic Editor for Coral Reefs, the flagship journal of the International Society for Reef Studies: 2021‒present.
Elected Chair of the Geological Society of America Marine and Coastal Geoscience Division: 2021‒2025.
Invited Visiting Faculty and Lead Instructor for the Northeastern University Three Seas Program’s Graduate Coral Reef Ecology Field Course in Panama: 2016–2020.
Mendenhall Postdoctoral Researcher, U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, FL: 2014‒2016.
Research Scientist, Florida Institute of Technology, Department of Biology, Melbourne, FL: 2013‒2014.
Education and Certifications
Ph.D., Florida Institute of Technology, Biological Sciences (2009–2013), Dissertation: Holocene coral-reef development in the tropical eastern Pacific
University of South Alabama Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Marine Science Graduate Program (2007–2008, transferred to Florida Institute of Technology)
B.S., University of Miami, Majors in Marine Science, Biology, and Motion Pictures, Minor in Chemistry (2002–2006)
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 19
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Filter Total Items: 48
Disturbances drive changes in coral community assemblages and coral calcification capacity
Anthropogenic environmental change has increased coral reef disturbance regimes in recent decades, altering the structure and function of many coral reefs globally. In this study, we used coral community survey data collected from 1996 to 2015 to evaluate coral calcification capacity (CCC) dynamics with respect to recorded pulse disturbances for 121 reef sites in the Main Hawaiian...
Authors
Travis A. Courtney, Brian B. Barnes, Iliana Chollett, Robin Elahi, Kevin Gross, James R. Guest, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Elizabeth A. Lenz, Hanna R Nelson, Caroline S. Rogers, Lauren Toth, Andreas Andersson
Digging into the geologic record of environmentally driven changes in coral-reef development
This lesson uses data based on real-world geological archives to guide students toward understanding how climate and oceanography have impacted coral-reef growth over the last 5000 years. The objective of the lesson is for students to determine the relationship between environmental variability and coral-reef development over millennial timescales. In this activity, students will: 1...
Authors
Philip M. Gravinese, Richard B. Aronson, Lauren Toth
A revised Holocene coral sea-level database from the Florida reef tract, USA
The coral reefs and mangrove habitats of the south Florida region have long been used in sea-level studies for the western Atlantic because of their broad geographic extent and composition of sea-level tracking biota. The data from this region have been used to support several very different Holocene sea-level reconstructions (SLRs) over the years. However, many of these SLRs did not...
Authors
Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Bernhard M Riegl, Lauren Toth
Cultivating future environmental stewards: A case study at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park
Our study supports previous research suggesting that participation in citizen-science programs can significantly enhance student learning and attitudes about science, while simultaneously promoting environmental stewardship. Providing students with the opportunity to collect scientific data through citizen-science programs can increase their understanding of local ecosystems, enhance...
Authors
Veronica L. Frehm, Philip M. Gravinese, Lauren Toth
Heat accumulation on coral reefs mitigated by internal waves
Coral reefs are among the most species-rich, productive and economically valuable ecosystems on Earth but increasingly frequent pantropical coral bleaching events are threatening their persistence on a global scale. The 2015–2016 El Niño led to the hottest sea surface temperatures on record and widespread bleaching of shallow-water corals. However, the causes of spatial variation in...
Authors
Alex S. J. Wyatt, James J Leichter, Lauren Toth, Toshihiro Miyajima, Richard B. Aronson, Toshi Nagata
Enhanced El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability in recent decades
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) represents the largest source of year-to-year global climate variability. While Earth system models suggest a range of possible shifts in ENSO properties under continued greenhouse gas forcing, many centuries of preindustrial climate data are required to detect a potential shift in the properties of recent ENSO extremes. Here we reconstruct the...
Authors
Pamela R. Grothe, Kim M. Cobb, Giovanni Liguori, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, Antonietta Capotondi, Yanbin Lu, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards, John R. Southon, Guaciara M. Santos, Daniel M. Decampo, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, Tianran Chen, Hussein R. Sayani, Diane M. Thompson, Jessica L. Conroy, Andrea L. Moore, Kayla Townsend, Melat Hagos, Gemma O’Connor, Lauren Toth
Upwelling buffers climate change impacts on coral reefs of the eastern tropical Pacific
Corals of the eastern tropical Pacific live in a marginal and oceanographically dynamic environment. Along the Pacific coast of Panamá, stronger seasonal upwelling in the Gulf of Panamá in the east transitions to weaker upwelling in the Gulf of Chiriquí in the west, resulting in complex regional oceanographic conditions that drive differential coral-reef growth. Over millennial...
Authors
Carly J. Randall, Lauren Toth, James J Leichter, Juan L Mate, Richard B. Aronson
The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef-building corals and the emergence of a novel coral-reef assemblage
Over the last half century, climate change, coral disease, and other anthropogenic disturbances have restructured coral-reef ecosystems on a global scale. The disproportionate loss of once-dominant, reef-building taxa has facilitated relative increases in the abundance of “weedy” or stress-tolerant coral species. Although the recent transformation of coral-reef assemblages is...
Authors
Lauren Toth, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Robert R. Ruzicka, Michael A. Colella, Eugene A Shinn
Improving estimates of coral reef construction and erosion with in-situ measurements
The decline in living coral since the 1970s has conspicuously slowed reef construction on a global scale, but the related process of reef erosion is less visible and not often quantified. Here we present new data on the constructional and deconstructional side of the carbonate-budget equation in the Florida Keys, U.S.A. We documented Orbicella spp. calcification rates at four offshore...
Authors
Ilsa B. Kuffner, Lauren Toth, J. Michael Hudson, William B. Goodwin, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Lucy Bartlett, Elizabeth M. Whitcher
Climate change, coral loss, and the curious case of the parrotfish paradigm: Why don't marine protected areas improve reef resilience?
Scientists have advocated for local interventions, such as creating marine protected areas and implementing fishery restrictions, as ways to mitigate local stressors to limit the effects of climate change on reef-building corals. However, in a literature review, we find little empirical support for the notion of managed resilience. We outline some reasons for why marine protected areas...
Authors
John F. Bruno, Isabelle M. Cote, Lauren Toth
The 4.2 ka event, ENSO, and coral reef development
Variability of sea-surface temperature related to shifts in the mode of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been implicated as a possible forcing mechanism for the global-scale changes in tropical and subtropical precipitation known as the 4.2 ka event. We review records of coral reef development and paleoceanography from the tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) to evaluate the...
Authors
Lauren Toth, Richard B. Aronson
Quantifying uncertainty in Sr/Ca-based estimates of SST from the coral Orbicella faveolata
The strontium to calcium ratio (Sr/Ca) in aragonitic skeletons of massive corals provides a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST) that can be used to reconstruct paleoclimates across decades, centuries, and, potentially, millennia. Determining the reproducibility of Sr/Ca records among contemporaneous coral colonies from the same region is critical to quantifying uncertainties...
Authors
Jennifer A. Flannery, Julie N. Richey, Lauren Toth, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Richard Z. Poore
Non-USGS Publications**
Toth, L.T., I.G. Macintyre, and R.B. Aronson, 2017, Holocene reef development in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. In Glynn, P.W., D.P. Manzello, and I.C. Enochs (eds). Coral Reefs of the Eastern Pacific: Persistence and Loss in a Dynamic Environment. Springer-Verlag, New York. doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-7499-4_6.
Toth, L.T., R.B. Aronson, S.R. Smith, T.J.T. Murdoch, J.C. Ogden, W.F. Precht, and R. van Woesik, 2014, Do no-take reserves benefit corals? 14 years of stasis and change on Florida’s reefs. Coral Reefs 33:565–577, doi: 10.1007/s00338-014-1158-x.
Smith, T. B., Glynn, P. W., Maté, J. L., Toth, L. T. and Gyory, J., 2014, A depth refugium from catastrophic coral bleaching prevents regional extinction. Ecology, 95: 1663-1673. doi:10.1890/13-0468.1.
Staaterman, E.R., Z. Reichenbach, A. Bhandiwad, P. Gravinese, P. Moeller, A. Shantz, D.S. Shiffman, L.T. Toth, and A. Warneke, A.J. Gallagher, 2014, Lights, camera, science: The growing popularity of film festivals at scientific meetings. Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 7:11–16.
Aronson, R. B., Precht, W. F., Macintyre, I. G. and Toth, L. T., 2012, Catastrophe and the life span of coral reefs. Ecology, 93: 303-313, doi:10.1890/11-1037.1. doi:10.1126/science.1221168.
Toth, L.T., R.B. Aronson, S.V. Vollmer, J.W. Hobbs, D. Urrego, H. Cheng, I.C. Enochs, D.J. Combosch, R. van Woesik, and I.G. Macintyre, 2012, ENSO drove 2500-year collapse of eastern Pacific coral reefs. Science 337:81–84.
Enochs IC, Toth LT, Brandtneris VW, Afflerbach JC, Manzello DP, 2011, Environmental determinants of motile cryptofauna on an eastern Pacific coral reef. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 438:105-118. doi:10.3354/meps09259.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Filter Total Items: 25
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 19
No Result Found
Filter Total Items: 48
Disturbances drive changes in coral community assemblages and coral calcification capacity
Anthropogenic environmental change has increased coral reef disturbance regimes in recent decades, altering the structure and function of many coral reefs globally. In this study, we used coral community survey data collected from 1996 to 2015 to evaluate coral calcification capacity (CCC) dynamics with respect to recorded pulse disturbances for 121 reef sites in the Main Hawaiian...
Authors
Travis A. Courtney, Brian B. Barnes, Iliana Chollett, Robin Elahi, Kevin Gross, James R. Guest, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Elizabeth A. Lenz, Hanna R Nelson, Caroline S. Rogers, Lauren Toth, Andreas Andersson
Digging into the geologic record of environmentally driven changes in coral-reef development
This lesson uses data based on real-world geological archives to guide students toward understanding how climate and oceanography have impacted coral-reef growth over the last 5000 years. The objective of the lesson is for students to determine the relationship between environmental variability and coral-reef development over millennial timescales. In this activity, students will: 1...
Authors
Philip M. Gravinese, Richard B. Aronson, Lauren Toth
A revised Holocene coral sea-level database from the Florida reef tract, USA
The coral reefs and mangrove habitats of the south Florida region have long been used in sea-level studies for the western Atlantic because of their broad geographic extent and composition of sea-level tracking biota. The data from this region have been used to support several very different Holocene sea-level reconstructions (SLRs) over the years. However, many of these SLRs did not...
Authors
Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Bernhard M Riegl, Lauren Toth
Cultivating future environmental stewards: A case study at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park
Our study supports previous research suggesting that participation in citizen-science programs can significantly enhance student learning and attitudes about science, while simultaneously promoting environmental stewardship. Providing students with the opportunity to collect scientific data through citizen-science programs can increase their understanding of local ecosystems, enhance...
Authors
Veronica L. Frehm, Philip M. Gravinese, Lauren Toth
Heat accumulation on coral reefs mitigated by internal waves
Coral reefs are among the most species-rich, productive and economically valuable ecosystems on Earth but increasingly frequent pantropical coral bleaching events are threatening their persistence on a global scale. The 2015–2016 El Niño led to the hottest sea surface temperatures on record and widespread bleaching of shallow-water corals. However, the causes of spatial variation in...
Authors
Alex S. J. Wyatt, James J Leichter, Lauren Toth, Toshihiro Miyajima, Richard B. Aronson, Toshi Nagata
Enhanced El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability in recent decades
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) represents the largest source of year-to-year global climate variability. While Earth system models suggest a range of possible shifts in ENSO properties under continued greenhouse gas forcing, many centuries of preindustrial climate data are required to detect a potential shift in the properties of recent ENSO extremes. Here we reconstruct the...
Authors
Pamela R. Grothe, Kim M. Cobb, Giovanni Liguori, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, Antonietta Capotondi, Yanbin Lu, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards, John R. Southon, Guaciara M. Santos, Daniel M. Decampo, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, Tianran Chen, Hussein R. Sayani, Diane M. Thompson, Jessica L. Conroy, Andrea L. Moore, Kayla Townsend, Melat Hagos, Gemma O’Connor, Lauren Toth
Upwelling buffers climate change impacts on coral reefs of the eastern tropical Pacific
Corals of the eastern tropical Pacific live in a marginal and oceanographically dynamic environment. Along the Pacific coast of Panamá, stronger seasonal upwelling in the Gulf of Panamá in the east transitions to weaker upwelling in the Gulf of Chiriquí in the west, resulting in complex regional oceanographic conditions that drive differential coral-reef growth. Over millennial...
Authors
Carly J. Randall, Lauren Toth, James J Leichter, Juan L Mate, Richard B. Aronson
The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef-building corals and the emergence of a novel coral-reef assemblage
Over the last half century, climate change, coral disease, and other anthropogenic disturbances have restructured coral-reef ecosystems on a global scale. The disproportionate loss of once-dominant, reef-building taxa has facilitated relative increases in the abundance of “weedy” or stress-tolerant coral species. Although the recent transformation of coral-reef assemblages is...
Authors
Lauren Toth, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Robert R. Ruzicka, Michael A. Colella, Eugene A Shinn
Improving estimates of coral reef construction and erosion with in-situ measurements
The decline in living coral since the 1970s has conspicuously slowed reef construction on a global scale, but the related process of reef erosion is less visible and not often quantified. Here we present new data on the constructional and deconstructional side of the carbonate-budget equation in the Florida Keys, U.S.A. We documented Orbicella spp. calcification rates at four offshore...
Authors
Ilsa B. Kuffner, Lauren Toth, J. Michael Hudson, William B. Goodwin, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Lucy Bartlett, Elizabeth M. Whitcher
Climate change, coral loss, and the curious case of the parrotfish paradigm: Why don't marine protected areas improve reef resilience?
Scientists have advocated for local interventions, such as creating marine protected areas and implementing fishery restrictions, as ways to mitigate local stressors to limit the effects of climate change on reef-building corals. However, in a literature review, we find little empirical support for the notion of managed resilience. We outline some reasons for why marine protected areas...
Authors
John F. Bruno, Isabelle M. Cote, Lauren Toth
The 4.2 ka event, ENSO, and coral reef development
Variability of sea-surface temperature related to shifts in the mode of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been implicated as a possible forcing mechanism for the global-scale changes in tropical and subtropical precipitation known as the 4.2 ka event. We review records of coral reef development and paleoceanography from the tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) to evaluate the...
Authors
Lauren Toth, Richard B. Aronson
Quantifying uncertainty in Sr/Ca-based estimates of SST from the coral Orbicella faveolata
The strontium to calcium ratio (Sr/Ca) in aragonitic skeletons of massive corals provides a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST) that can be used to reconstruct paleoclimates across decades, centuries, and, potentially, millennia. Determining the reproducibility of Sr/Ca records among contemporaneous coral colonies from the same region is critical to quantifying uncertainties...
Authors
Jennifer A. Flannery, Julie N. Richey, Lauren Toth, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Richard Z. Poore
Non-USGS Publications**
Toth, L.T., I.G. Macintyre, and R.B. Aronson, 2017, Holocene reef development in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. In Glynn, P.W., D.P. Manzello, and I.C. Enochs (eds). Coral Reefs of the Eastern Pacific: Persistence and Loss in a Dynamic Environment. Springer-Verlag, New York. doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-7499-4_6.
Toth, L.T., R.B. Aronson, S.R. Smith, T.J.T. Murdoch, J.C. Ogden, W.F. Precht, and R. van Woesik, 2014, Do no-take reserves benefit corals? 14 years of stasis and change on Florida’s reefs. Coral Reefs 33:565–577, doi: 10.1007/s00338-014-1158-x.
Smith, T. B., Glynn, P. W., Maté, J. L., Toth, L. T. and Gyory, J., 2014, A depth refugium from catastrophic coral bleaching prevents regional extinction. Ecology, 95: 1663-1673. doi:10.1890/13-0468.1.
Staaterman, E.R., Z. Reichenbach, A. Bhandiwad, P. Gravinese, P. Moeller, A. Shantz, D.S. Shiffman, L.T. Toth, and A. Warneke, A.J. Gallagher, 2014, Lights, camera, science: The growing popularity of film festivals at scientific meetings. Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 7:11–16.
Aronson, R. B., Precht, W. F., Macintyre, I. G. and Toth, L. T., 2012, Catastrophe and the life span of coral reefs. Ecology, 93: 303-313, doi:10.1890/11-1037.1. doi:10.1126/science.1221168.
Toth, L.T., R.B. Aronson, S.V. Vollmer, J.W. Hobbs, D. Urrego, H. Cheng, I.C. Enochs, D.J. Combosch, R. van Woesik, and I.G. Macintyre, 2012, ENSO drove 2500-year collapse of eastern Pacific coral reefs. Science 337:81–84.
Enochs IC, Toth LT, Brandtneris VW, Afflerbach JC, Manzello DP, 2011, Environmental determinants of motile cryptofauna on an eastern Pacific coral reef. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 438:105-118. doi:10.3354/meps09259.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Filter Total Items: 25