Using Repertoires to Explore Changing Practices in Recent Coral Research

Abstract

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, scientists working in coral reef biology documented unprecedented and extensive changes and degradation of reefs worldwide. This chapter investigates the evolution of coral reef biology research during this critical period, focusing on the emergence and use in the field of an “infection repertoire” which as we document was borrowed from biomedical research. Coral reef biology researchers borrowed and used this repertoire, recognizing and leveraging critical institutional factors such as strategies to align their research with national and global funding priorities, as well as managerial decisions concerning the set-up, infrastructures, and technologies to be prioritized for the production and circulation of data. These institutional and managerial characteristics were as crucial to emerging approaches in the field of coral reef biology as were the conceptual and methodological factors relating to the identification and investigation of the causes of the changes being observed. The fruitfulness of the diseaserelated explanation of reef damage was not a serendipitous outcome of the application of a theoretical framework, but rather a well-engineered and deliberate choice made by a coalition of marine researchers who actively decided to reproduce a certain way of organizing and conducting research. The field of coral reef research presents an intriguing domain to study to reflect on practices in marine biology, given its rapid evolution in recent years and because it has involved researchers from multiple disciplines working together, importing and adapting resources (including repertoires) from other fields in ways that significantly impacted ongoing research.