Mary Alice Coffroth

Mary Alice Coffroth is an American marine biologist who is a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is known for her use of molecular tools to examine coral larval ecology, recruitment and cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis.

Education and career

Coffroth has a B.S. from the College of William and Mary, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami. In 1990 she joined the State University of New York at Buffalo where, as of 2023, she is a professor in the geology department.

Her PhD research focused on the production of coral mucus by poritid corals and its role in the reef ecosystem. She was an early adopter of molecular approaches in marine ecology initially examining gorgonian population genetics using DNA fingerprinting, followed by research into the molecular taxonomy of cnidarian photosymbionts. Coffroth has used the underwater research station Aquarius Reef Base to study genetic differences in corals. Her work on coral spawning in the Caribbean has shown how corals can initially take up a range of symbiont species which are then winnowed to a predictable subset of the available species. She has also examined how coral symbionts are responding to climate change and increasing sea water temperatures. She established a culture collection with Caribbean corals and octocorals, the BURR Culture Collection, which is used to examine the relationship between corals and their symbiotic algae.