Advisory Board and Editors Ecology
Mason Posner
Professor and former Chairperson of Biology and Toxicology at Ashland University in Ohio. My research focuses on the evolution, physiology and biochemistry of alpha crystallins, a group of small heat shock proteins that protect cells against stress and are implicated in numerous diseases such as lens cataracts, Parkinsons, Alzheimers and cancer. My undergraduate research students and I use the zebrafish and other fish species as models to investigate alpha crystallin function. Our work involves qPCR to measure gene expression, CRISPR gene editing, proteomics, transcriptomics, promoter analysis and histology.
My background is in marine biology, systematics, ecology, molecular biology, protein biochemistry and comparative visual physiology. I train undergraduate research assistants in my laboratory and prepare students for graduate and professional schools and work in industry.
Hugh Possingham
Professor of Mathematics and Professor of Ecology. Director of The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. Director of The National Environment Research Program hub for Environmental Decisions
Alastair J Potts
I am interested in many aspects of South African œcology, including palaeovegetation distributions, plant phylogeography, drivers of biome boundaries and Albany Subtropical Thicket œcology (e.g. physiology, seed dispersal and restoration). I also spend time exploring the interface between phylogenetic trees and networks, as evolution is often poorly described using a bifurcating tree.
Nichole N Price
Nichole Price is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of a new center focused on securing sustainable, nutritious, and safe seafood for generations to come at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine. The center for Seafood Security seeks to translate cutting-edge marine science to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. Nichole’s research and partnerships with NOAA, the Nature Conservancy, the US Geological Survey, and US Fish and Wildlife have taken her SCUBA diving around the globe on coral reefs in Africa, Asia, and across remote islands in the Central Pacific. More recently, she has focused her work in Southern California and the Gulf of Maine where she has partnered closely with members of the seaweed and shellfish industries to develop remediation strategies for ocean acidification, nutrient loading, and low oxygen conditions.
Nichole earned her Ph.D. in marine ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and became a postdoctoral scholar and project scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography before moving to Maine. She has 10 years experience on the studying impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and uses this knowledge to help find evidence-based, local solutions to global challenges.
Jeff Price
Dr. Price is a Senior Researcher in the Tyndall Climate Change Centre, University of East Anglia. He is the coordinator of the Wallace Initiative, an Australia/U.K. collaboration examining the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity (125,000 species examined) and ecosystem services at temperatures of 1.5° - 6°C. He is completing work on the Helix project where he coordinated the development of ClimaCrop, a new tool for looking at the impacts of climate change on crop yields and suitability. He was one of the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, (and contributing author on the Fifth) for which he shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC. He also served on the Convention on Biological Diversity Ad-hoc Technical Expert Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity, and contributed to the U.K. Government’s Stern Review of the Economic Impacts of Climate Change (looking at health, agriculture and biodiversity) and the U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change Impacts on the United States.
Diogo B Provete
I am an Assistant Professor of Ecology and Statistical Ecology at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. My primary research interests include metacommunity ecology, biogeography, macroecology, and macroevolution. I often use phylogenetic comparative methods, geometric morphometrics, and multidimensional analysis in my research. I'm an elected member of the Science Committee of the Ecological Society of America, Chair of the ESA Latin America Chapter and serve as an Associate Editor for Amphibia-Reptilia, Journal of Herpetology, and Ecosphere. So far, I have published 30 papers on ecology and herpetology in international journals, 4 book chapters, in addition to a book on Biogeographical patterns of South American Anurans by Springer. My research has been featured in F1000 Prime and several Brazilian newspapers. I have advised four master's students. I have been invited to present my research in Swansea (UK), Argentina, Recife, and São Paulo. I served as Editor-in-Chief for Check List, and also was a member of the editorial board of five other zoology journals.
Benoit Pujol
Senior scientist, interested by open science (SORTEE member), registered reports (PCI RR founder) and the ability of plants (snapdragons, white campions, arabidopsis) and animals (clownfish, coral, roe deer, aphids) to adapt! Using quantitative genetics and developping it in wild populations to identify mechanisms that meddle with the response to selection on an ecological time scale.
Nicholas D Pyenson
Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson is a research geologist and curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. As a paleontologist, his scientific research focuses on the repeated and convergent evolution of marine life, including iconic lineages such as sea turtles, sea cows, and especially whales.
Juan P Quimbayo
I am an ecologist who uses a multidisciplinary approach to understand and conserve biodiversity through space and time. I earned my Ph.D. from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil and served as a Research Scientist at the Ohio State University. I previously conducted post-doctoral work at other institutions, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and São Paulo University. I joined the U in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology where I established the BioScales Lab. My lab focuses on exploring: (1) patterns and processes of biodiversity dynamics across space and time, (2) ecological interactions, and (3) effects of global change on biodiversity. To investigate these themes, we integrate theoretical concepts, statistical tools, and field-based methods across multiple scales.
Arnold Rakaj
Dr. Arnold Rakaj works at the Laboratory of Experimental Ecology and Aquaculture at the University of Rome Tor Vergata where is carrying out basic and applied research on marine invertebrates and their role in the benthic dynamics.
Claudio C Ramirez
I work on insect ecology focusing in plant-insect interactions from a perspective that addresses proximal (ecological) and distal (evolutionary) causes. This approach aims to contribute to the knowledge of the herbivory patterns observed in natural and productive systems. Regarding proximal causes, I have a particular interest in the behavioral mechanisms that insect uses to feed on host plants, this includes how they deal with plant defense (either in crops or native plants). In relation to distal causes, I am interested in the correlation or experimental association between traits and reproductive outputs over generations. I have been studying hemipteran insects of the family Aphididae, which constitute important crop pests in Chile. Aphids are the group of insects that I have study the most. That are a good model to address fundamental questions in biology and also are a real problem for plant production. I do also enjoy to contribute with ideas aimed to reduce the use of pesticides in agroecosystems. The relationship between agrecosystem and natural areas are also an area that I intend to explore.
Santiago Ramirez-Barahona
I am specially interested in the ecological, geographical and historical factors that influence species and gene diversities at different spatial scales. For this, I'm studying different aspects of plant evolution, from genetic structure within and among populations to species diversification among lineages, community composition and distribution patterns.