Ruth D. Gates (1962–2018) Coral Biologist and Tireless Reef Advocate

obituary Ruth D. Gates (1962–2018) Coral biologist and tireless reef advocate. r Ruth Gates achieved widespread recognition with her research on coral Dbiology and human-assisted coral evolution. Her untimely death has not only deprived the field of a talented scholar and indefatigable mentor, but has also caused the loss of a tireless and charismatic advocate for coral reefs. This is exemplified by her appearance in the Emmy-award-winning documentary Chasing Coral (https:// www.chasingcoral.com). Ruth brought an irrepressibly positive attitude to her career, and her personality and scientific acumen propelled her research, and the scientists she mentored, to international prominence. Funding from the philanthropist Paul Allen provided high-profile recognition of the importance of her research, and allowed Ruth to advance her agenda to harness the basic biology of corals to conserve coral reefs, in part through the development of ‘super corals’ with enhanced resistance and resilience to climate change. Ruth began her career as a PhD student Ruth Gates at HIMB in 2016. Credit: Elyse Butler with Professor Barbara Brown at Newcastle University, United Kingdom, from 1985 to 1990. Her research involved fieldwork had become clear that coral symbionts conditions, her prominence in the field at the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory were a group of diverse clades capable of provided a powerful voice advocating for the in Jamaica; she arrived there in 1985, changes in relative abundance within a roles of fundamental research, organismic shortly before the first devastating wave host. Ruth was instrumental in identifying biology and ecological investigations in of bleaching impacted Caribbean reefs. limitations of contemporary genetic markers addressing the coral-reef crisis. Her earliest research identified coral in understanding this diversity, and her Ruth became director of HIMB in bleaching as a homeostatic process that application of higher-resolution molecular 2015, energizing a wave of renovations and was accentuated by warming seawater that techniques revealed the diversity of possible updates to the facility. This was also the time drove regional scale bleaching phenomena. functional relationships between coral hosts at which she crystallized a collaboration with Ruth then continued her research for and their symbiotic algal complement. This Dr Madeleine van Oppen of the Australian more than a decade at the University of description of the symbiotic landscape Institute of Marine Science and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where cleared the way for a new generation of Melbourne to use assisted evolution to grow she spent several years working with researchers to address the implication of coral stocks with enhanced resistance to Professor Len Muscatine. During her a shifting functional identity of the coral– anticipated future environmental challenges. time there, she identified key mechanistic Symbiodinium association, first proposed to At the time of her death, Ruth was mid- components in the processes of coral–algal much controversy in 1993. way through a five-year project supported symbioses and coral bleaching, including Ruth continued to challenge our by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Foundation to the role of host cell detachment in the understanding of the diversity of taxa generate such stocks, with the vision that loss of algal cells during thermal stress, capable of living in association with reef they might be explanted to reefs within and the role of amino acids as ‘host corals, as revealed by the coral field’s the distributional range of conspecifics to factors’ in promoting carbon loss from acceptance of the terms ‘holobiont’ to enhance resilience of coral communities. algal symbionts. While at UCLA, she also describe symbiotic corals, and ‘symbiome’ The research represents a radical departure developed interests in the capacity of corals for the complexity of microbes and from the prevailing constructs for enhancing to acclimatize to changing environmental macrobes with which they associate. She the survival of corals and coral reefs, and the conditions, and cultured diverse skills in conducted research at the forefront of efforts concept attracted critics. But Ruth remained molecular genetics, which together laid to recognize the roles of bacteria, viruses committed to its feasibility, and contended the groundwork for her engagement in the and other microbes in modulating the that her purpose was being misconstrued. concept of assisted evolution. functional response of the coral holobiont With this project, she did not intend to In 2003, Ruth was appointed as a research to changing conditions. While Ruth’s work ‘reseed’ global reefs, or to suggest that no faculty member at the Hawai’i Institute helped to redefine what ‘makes’ a coral, other options were available, rather that of Marine Biology (HIMB). By 2006, it and how it responds to environmental the severity of the coral-reef crisis made it 10 NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION | VOL 3 | JANUARY 2019 | 10–11 | www.nature.com/natecolevol obituary important to explore all possible solutions Throughout her career, Ruth claimed to by her charisma and passion for coral-reef while there was time. favour research over teaching and eschewed conservation. ❐ Indeed, Ruth came to play a leadership traditional academic engagement through role in facilitating a range of solutions to help coursework and student mentoring. Peter J. Edmunds1* and Virginia M. Weis2* corals survive. These included the Allen Coral Nevertheless, she was the primary mentor 1Department of Biology, California State University, Atlas (http://allencoralatlas.org/#1/0/0), a for 6 MSc and 13 PhD students, 13 Northridge, CA, USA. 2Department of Integrative high-resolution mapping tool that documents postdoctoral researchers and countless Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, the global distribution of coral reefs on a undergraduates in her lab. As the first USA. Dr Peter J. Edmunds is a coral ecophysiologist metre scale (launched just days after her female president of the International Society at California State University Northridge. In the death), and creating giant ex situ reefs as for Reef Studies, she revitalized the society’s 34 years since they completed their PhD research laboratories for radical experimentation image, membership and mission, and together in Jamaica, Peter and Ruth collaborated (for example Biosphere 2 Ocean, http:// was an exceptional role model for women frequently, and published 20 papers together on biosphere2.org/research/model-system/ in science. The outpouring of support various aspects of coral biology. Dr Virginia M. Weis reef-solutions-biosphere-2-ocean). Ruth’s following her death suggests that ‘teaching’ is a coral cell biologist at Oregon State University. gift for public speaking and championing may in fact turn out to be her greatest She was a close friend and colleague of Ruth for 29 the cause of coral reef conservation took legacy: a generation of early career scientists years, participating with her in numerous eforts to full flight in the last five years of her life. whose research paths have been shaped by promote foundational research on corals symbiosis She was widely viewed as the most effective her influence; a large circle of colleagues and solutions to coral-reef decline. communicator for coral reefs in a generation, and peers who will now carry forward her *e-mail: [email protected]; weisv@science. conducting countless interviews with the scientific vision and infectious enthusiasm oregonstate.edu media, appearing in multiple documentaries for all things coral; and a public multimedia and interacting tirelessly with the public in audience whose attitudes to science, Published online: 10 December 2018 myriad outreach activities. scientists and coral reefs have been altered https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0763-4 NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION | VOL 3 | JANUARY 2019 | 10–11 | www.nature.com/natecolevol 11.

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