Mote scientist receives prestigious grant

Mote Marine Laboratory scientist Dr. Erinn Muller received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study threatened marine corals.

The prestigious NSF grant, part of the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program, will total $578,681 for five years of research.

Dr. Muller will focus on research with staghorn coral, a threatened species that has inhabited reefs for the last two million years but has drastically decreased in numbers in Florida in recent years. She will study the coral’s ability to be affected by and rebound from major stressors, including disease, high water temperature and ocean acidification. She will also involve students in her research.

“This is what I got into science to do, help save an ecosystem in peril,” Dr. Muller said in a press release. “Now this grant is helping me reach my lifelong goal.”

Dr. Muller eared her PhD from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2011 and joined Mote as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2012.

“I think my research through this grant is significant because coral reefs are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world and also one of the most important,” Dr. Muller said in the press release. “They bring millions of people to a Florida each year, as tourists go to look at the reefs. They provide over 70,000 local jobs and are worth billions of dollars to our state economy. But reefs are in danger of being lost forever.”