Bio

Courtney completed her B.S. in Marine Biology at Texas A&M University Galveston, her M.S. in Biology at Florida Atlantic University in the Voss lab, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution at Old Dominion University in the Barshis lab. She recently finished a postdoctoral research position with More Marine Laboratory in Summerland Key, FL, where she examined nursery coral resilience and/or resistance under multiple coral stressors (temperature and acidification) and investigated tolerant symbiotic associations to inform and assist in coral restoration interventions. At Stanford, she will be involved with mapping coral heat resistance across multiple Pacific reefs as part of a collaborative (NSF) Super Reefs project, where she will train and collaborate with local students and researchers on coral tolerance experiments. By investigating the influence of environment, physiological plasticity, and genetic adaptation on the stress tolerance scope of corals, her research aims are to understand how corals will respond to future climate change and identify putatively tolerant corals for management. When she isn't doing science, Courtney enjoys running, surfing, and hiking with her husband and dog, Hank.

Stanford Advisors

Contact

  • Academic
    cklepac@stanford.edu
    University - Scholar Department: Biology Position: Postdoctoral Scholar

Additional Info

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Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Courtney will be involved with mapping coral heat resistance across multiple Pacific reefs as part of a collaborative (NSF) Super Reefs project, where she will train and collaborate with local students and researchers on coral tolerance experiments. By investigating the influence of environment, physiological plasticity, and genetic adaptation on the stress tolerance scope of corals, her research aims are to understand how corals will respond to future climate change and identify putatively tolerant corals for management.

All Publications

  • Assessing acute thermal assays as a rapid screening tool for coral restoration. Scientific reports Klepac, C. N., Petrik, C. G., Karabelas, E., Owens, J., Hall, E. R., Muller, E. M. 2024; 14 (1): 1898

    Abstract

    Escalating environmental threats to coral reefs coincides with global advancements in coral restoration programs. To improve long-term efficacy, practitioners must consider incorporating genotypes resilient to ocean warming and disease while maintaining genetic diversity. Identifying such genotypes typically occurs under long-term exposures that mimic natural stressors, but these experiments can be time-consuming, costly, and introduce tank effects, hindering scalability for hundreds of nursery genotypes used for outplanting. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of the acute Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) against long-term exposures on the bleaching response of Acropora cervicornis, the dominant restoration species in Florida's Coral Reef. Comparing bleaching metrics, Fv/Fm, chlorophyll, and host protein, we observed similar responses between the long-term heat and the CBASS treatment of 34.3 °C, which was also the calculated bleaching threshold. This suggests the potential of CBASS as a rapid screening tool, with 90% of restoration genotypes exhibiting similar bleaching tolerances. However, variations in acute bleaching phenotypes arose from measurement timing and experiment heat accumulation, cautioning against generalizations solely based on metrics like Fv/Fm. These findings identify the need to better refine the tools necessary to quickly and effectively screen coral restoration genotypes and determine their relative tolerance for restoration interventions.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41598-024-51944-5

    View details for PubMedID 38253660

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10803358

  • Bio-optical signatures of in situ photosymbionts predict bleaching severity prior to thermal stress in the Caribbean coral species <i>Acropora palmata</i> CORAL REEFS Hoadley, K. D., Lowry, S., Mcquagge, A., Dalessandri, S., Lockridge, G., O'Donnell, S., Elder, H., Ruggeri, M., Karabelas, E., Klepac, C., Kenkel, C., Muller, E. M. 2024

    View details for DOI 10.1007/s00338-023-02458-5

    View details for Web of Science ID 001145191400001

  • The roles of heating rate, intensity, and duration on the response of corals and their endosymbiotic algae to thermal stress JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY Evensen, N. R., Bateman, T. G., Klepac, C. N., Schmidt-Roach, S., Barreto, M., Aranda, M., Warner, M. E., Barshis, D. J. 2023; 567

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jembe.2023.151930

    View details for Web of Science ID 001047268000001

  • The Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS): A low-cost, portable system for standardized empirical assessments of coral thermal limits LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY-METHODS Evensen, N. R., Parker, K. E., Oliver, T. A., Palumbi, S. R., Logan, C. A., Ryan, J. S., Klepac, C. N., Perna, G., Warner, M. E., Voolstra, C. R., Barshis, D. J. 2023

    View details for DOI 10.1002/lom3.10555

    View details for Web of Science ID 000995408300001

  • Symbiont composition and coral genotype determines massive coral species performance under end-of-century climate scenarios FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE Klepac, C. N., Eaton, K. R., Petrik, C. G., Arick, L. N., Hall, E. R., Muller, E. M. 2023; 10

    View details for DOI 10.3389/fmars.2023.1026426

    View details for Web of Science ID 000939750800001

  • High-resolution <i>in situ</i> thermal metrics coupled with acute heat stress experiments reveal differential coral bleaching susceptibility CORAL REEFS Klepac, C. N., Barshis, D. J. 2022; 41 (4): 1045-1057

    View details for DOI 10.1007/s00338-022-02276-1

    View details for Web of Science ID 000835141400018

  • Microbiome Structuring Within a Coral Colony and Along a Sedimentation Gradient FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE Fifer, J. E., Bui, V., Berg, J. T., Kriefall, N., Klepac, C., Bentlage, B., Davies, S. W. 2022; 08

    View details for DOI 10.3389/fmars.2021.805202

    View details for Web of Science ID 000760544600001

  • Reduced thermal tolerance of massive coral species in a highly variable environment. Proceedings. Biological sciences Klepac, C. N., Barshis, D. J. 2020; 287 (1933): 20201379

    Abstract

    Coral bleaching events are increasing in frequency and severity, resulting in widespread losses in coral cover. However, branching corals native to highly variable (HV) thermal environments can have higher bleaching resistance than corals from more moderate habitats. Here, we investigated the response of two massive corals, Porites lobata and Goniastrea retiformis, from a moderately variable (MV) and a low variability (LV) pool transplanted into a HV pool on Ofu Island in American Samoa. Paired transplant and native ramets were exposed to an acute thermal stress after 6 and 12 months of exposure to the HV pool to evaluate changes in thermal tolerance limits. For both species, photosynthetic efficiency and chlorophyll loss following acute heat stress did not differ between ramets transplanted into the HV pool and respective native pool. Moreover, HV native P. lobata exhibited the greatest bleaching susceptibility compared to MV and LV natives and there was no effect of acute heat stress on MV P. lobata. There was also a thermal anomaly during the study, where Ofu's backreef thermal regime surpassed historical records-2015 had 8 degree heating weeks (DHW) and 2016 had up to 5 DHW (in comparison to less than or equal to 3 over the last 10 years)-which may have exceeded the upper thermal limits of HV native P. lobata. These results strongly contrast with other research on coral tolerance in variable environments, potentially underscoring species-specific mechanisms and regional thermal anomalies that may be equally important in shaping coral responses to extreme temperatures.

    View details for DOI 10.1098/rspb.2020.1379

    View details for PubMedID 32811319

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC7482266

  • Seasonal stability of coral-<i>Symbiodinium</i> associations in the subtropical coral habitat of St. Lucie Reef, Florida MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES Klepac, C. N., Beal, J., Kenkel, C. D., Sproles, A., Polinski, J. M., Williams, M. A., Matz, M. V., Voss, J. D. 2015; 532: 137-151

    View details for DOI 10.3354/meps11369

    View details for Web of Science ID 000358445600011

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3935-8275