Advisory Board and Editors Marine Biology
Xavier Pochon
Team Leader, Molecular Surveillance, Biosecurity Group, Cawthron Institute, New Zealand.
Associate Professor, Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
My research at the Cawthron Institute is highly applied and consist of developing multi-trophic molecular tools for environmental monitoring of marine industries (e.g. aquaculture farms, marine biosecurity in ports and marinas, and deep-sea exploration).
At the University of Auckland, I combine 'real-world' and 'blue-sky' research applications, including; i) investigating functional underpinnings of Symbiodiniaceae in coral reef ecosystems, ii) characterizing microbiomes in aquaculture and natural settings, iii) measuring eDNA and eRNA decay rates in marine invertebrates and vertebrates, iv) studying preferential settlement of marine invasive species associated with marine plastic debris, and v) exploring the diversity and dynamics of open-ocean plankton communities in the Pacific and beyond.
Claudia Pogoreutz
My work broadly focuses on marine host-microbe systems, or ‘holobionts’, and the metabolic interactions that arise from and drive these complex symbiotic associations. I have always been interested in the microbial functions underlying holobiont health, resilience, and ecological adaptation, and how they shape holobiont stress responses. For this, I mainly use the cnidarian-algae symbiosis and associated bacteria as model systems, but have recently also started exploring the community structure, dynamics, and metabolic properties of fish skin microbiomes. My past and current research includes work on the contribution of nitrogen cycling pathways in cnidarian holobiont functioning and symbiotic breakdown, e.g., coral ‘bleaching’, as well as the elucidation of unknown functions of coral bacterial symbionts. For this, my approach has been to combine traditional physiological and culture-dependent techniques with high throughput-, next generation -omics applications, including whole genome and gene amplicon sequencing, transcriptomics, and proteomics. Currently, I am expanding my scope to targeted investigations of symbiotic metabolic interactions as a driver of osmoregulation in cnidarian holobionts employing nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) along with isotopic profiling metabolomics.
Beth Polidoro
Beth Polidoro is an Associate Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Marine Conservation, as well as serving as the Deputy Director for the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes at Arizona State University. Her primary research interests are in risk assessment and applied toxicology within the context of marine and freshwater biodiversity conservation, human health, and sustainable development. Dr. Polidoro has a broad background in the marine, chemical and environmental sciences. Before to coming to Arizona State University, she was a senior research associate with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), where she worked with scientists around the globe to quantify the impacts of anthropogenic threats on more than 20,000 marine species, for inclusion on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. She currently works on various marine and freshwater conservation initiatives and both ecological and human health risk assessments in the United States, Latin America, Africa and Oceania.
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.
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.
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.
Federica Ragazzola
Researcher at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dorhn (Ischia-Italy). My research focuses on understanding the effect of climate change on biomineralization processes and the modification in the ultra-structure of calcifying organisms, in particular in coralline algae.
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.
Michael S Rappé
Mike is a tenured Research Professor at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and is a member of the graduate faculty with the Departments of Oceanography, Microbiology, and the interdisciplinary Marine Biology Graduate Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The overarching theme of his research is to understand the impact of microbial genetic diversity on ocean ecology, and interpret this diversity through the lens of bacterial taxonomy and evolution. He investigates the ecology and evolution of marine microorganisms by combining surveys of natural microbial communities, nucleic acid sequence data, and studies with model systems in controlled laboratory settings.
James Davis Reimer
James Davis Reimer's research focuses on the biodiversity of understudied marine invertebrate groups (so-called "minor taxa"), primarily benthic cnidarians including zoantharians and their endosymbionts, as well as octocorals, from shallow tropical coral reefs to the deep sea. Recent research has also examined the impact of coastal development on marine diversity and ecosystems. Since 2007, he has been based at the University of the Ryukyus, where he is now a professor.
In 2015, he was awarded the Okinawa Research Prize for science contributing to the well-being and understanding of the Ryukyu Islands, and in 2021, he was awarded the Narishige Prize by the Zoological Society of Japan in recognition of his unique research output.
Karine Rousseau
Associate Professor of Comparative Neuroendocrinology at Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris; PhD in Reproductive Physiology