Ty Roach

Journal Article Communications biology · September 2023 All biology happens in space, and spatial structuring plays an important role in mediating biological processes at all scales from cells to ecosystems. However, the metabolomic structuring of the coral holobiont has yet to be fully explored. Here, we prese ... Full text Cite

Viral predation pressure on coral reefs.

Journal Article BMC biology · April 2023 BackgroundPredation pressure and herbivory exert cascading effects on coral reef health and stability. However, the extent of these cascading effects can vary considerably across space and time. This variability is likely a result of the complex i ... Full text Cite

More Stages Decrease Dissipation in Irreversible Step Processes

Journal Article Entropy · March 1, 2023 The dissipation in an irreversible step process is reduced when the number of steps is increased in any refinement of the steps in the process. This is a consequence of the ladder theorem, which states that, for any irreversible process proceeding by a seq ... Full text Cite

Multi-scale spatial ecology analyses: a Kullback information approach

Journal Article Landscape Ecology · March 1, 2023 Context: The way organisms are patterned in space dictates the outcome of many ecological processes such as growth, survival, colonization, and migration. The field of landscape ecology has developed quantitative metrics to describe spatial patterning usin ... Full text Cite

Fine-scale variability in coral bleaching and mortality during a marine heatwave

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · January 1, 2023 Coral bleaching and mortality can show significant spatial and taxonomic heterogeneity at local scales, highlighting the need to understand the fine-scale drivers and impacts of thermal stress. In this study, we used structure-from-motion photogrammetry to ... Full text Cite

Benthic assemblages are more predictable than fish assemblages at an island scale

Journal Article Coral Reefs · August 1, 2022 Decades of research have revealed relationships between the abundance of coral reef taxa and local conditions, especially at small scales. However, a rigorous test of covariation requires a robust dataset collected across wide environmental or experimental ... Full text Cite

Intrapopulation adaptive variance supports thermal tolerance in a reef-building coral.

Journal Article Communications biology · May 2022 Coral holobionts are multi-species assemblages, which adds significant complexity to genotype-phenotype connections underlying ecologically important traits like coral bleaching. Small scale heterogeneity in bleaching is ubiquitous in the absence of strong ... Full text Cite

Space-filling and benthic competition on coral reefs

Journal Article PeerJ · June 1, 2021 Reef-building corals are ecosystem engineers that compete with other benthic organisms for space and resources. Corals harvest energy through their surface by photosynthesis and heterotrophic feeding, and they divert part of this energy to defend their out ... Full text Cite

Three-Dimensional Molecular Cartography of the Caribbean Reef-Building Coral Orbicella faveolata

Journal Article Frontiers in Marine Science · April 1, 2021 All organisms host a diversity of associated viruses, bacteria, and protists, collectively defined as the holobiont. While scientific advancements have enhanced the understanding of the functional roles played by various components of the holobiont, there ... Full text Cite

A Field Primer for Monitoring Benthic Ecosystems using Structure-from-Motion Photogrammetry.

Journal Article Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · April 2021 Structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry is a technique used to generate three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions from a sequence of two-dimensional (2D) images. SfM methods are becoming increasingly popular as a noninvasive way to monitor many systems, in ... Full text Cite

Metabolomic signatures of coral bleaching history.

Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · April 2021 Coral bleaching has a profound impact on the health and function of reef ecosystems, but the metabolomic effects of coral bleaching are largely uncharacterized. Here, untargeted metabolomics was used to analyse pairs of adjacent Montipora capitata corals t ... Full text Cite

Use and abuse of entropy in biology: A case for caliber

Journal Article Entropy · December 1, 2020 Here, I discuss entropy and its use as a tool in fields of biology such as bioenergetics, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Statistical entropy concepts including Shannon’s diversity, configurational entropy, and informational entropy are discussed in con ... Full text Cite

A multiomic analysis of in situ coral-turf algal interactions.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · June 2020 Viruses, microbes, and host macroorganisms form ecological units called holobionts. Here, a combination of metagenomic sequencing, metabolomic profiling, and epifluorescence microscopy was used to investigate how the different components of the holobiont i ... Full text Cite

Biophysical and physiological processes causing oxygen loss from coral reefs.

Journal Article eLife · December 2019 The microbialization of coral reefs predicts that microbial oxygen consumption will cause reef deoxygenation. Here we tested this hypothesis by analyzing reef microbial and primary producer oxygen metabolisms. Metagenomic data and in vitro incubations of b ... Full text Cite

Emergent structure in a stochastic model of ecological evolution

Journal Article Ecological Modelling · June 1, 2019 Nonequilibrium thermodynamic theory has much to offer in explaining ecological and evolutionary processes. Formalizing biological processes in terms of thermodynamic parameters reveals that the generation of natural organization and complexity is an emerge ... Full text Cite

Application of Finite-Time and Control Thermodynamics to Biological Processes at Multiple Scales

Journal Article Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics · July 26, 2018 An overall synthesis of biology and non-equilibrium thermodynamics remains a challenge at the interface between the physical and life sciences. Herein, theorems from finite-time and control thermodynamics are applied to biological processes to indicate whi ... Full text Cite

Entropy in the Tangled Nature Model of evolution

Journal Article Entropy · May 1, 2017 Applications of entropy principles to evolution and ecology are of tantamount importance given the central role spatiotemporal structuring plays in both evolution and ecological succession. We obtain here a qualitative interpretation of the role of entropy ... Full text Cite

Microbial bioenergetics of coral-algal interactions

Journal Article PeerJ · January 1, 2017 Human impacts are causing ecosystem phase shifts from coral- to algal-dominated reef systems on a global scale. As these ecosystems undergo transition, there is an increased incidence of coral-macroalgal interactions. Mounting evidence indicates that the o ... Full text Cite

Global microbialization of coral reefs.

Journal Article Nature microbiology · April 2016 Microbialization refers to the observed shift in ecosystem trophic structure towards higher microbial biomass and energy use. On coral reefs, the proximal causes of microbialization are overfishing and eutrophication, both of which facilitate enhanced grow ... Full text Cite