Advisory Board and Editors Taxonomy
Alastair Culham
Associate Professor of Botany and Curator of the University of Reading Herbarium (RNG).
Kenneth De Baets
I am a paleobiologist. My main research focuses on reproductive strategies and macroevolution, particularly on the contributions of biotic interactions (e.g., parasitism) and abiotic factors (e.g., climate) in controlling evolutionary and diversity patterns. To this end, I work with a variety of approaches that combine research on fossil molluscs, coprolites and fieldwork with large-scale quantitative analyses. Other interests are quantitative methods to study biostratigraphy, intraspecific variability and paleobiology in general. My main taxonomic expertise is on invertebrates, mainly (extinct) cephalopod mollusks and parasitic helminths. The promotion of diversity and young scientists as well as scientific collaboration and reproducibility in paleontology are particularly close to my heart.
Natasha de Vere
Head of Conservation and Research at the National Botanic Garden of Wales and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University.
Agnes Dettai
Associate professor at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. Curator of the fish barcode collection.
I study the systematics and evolution of Actinopterygians, especially at the inter/intra specific boundary and in species delineation with integrative approaches, but also on the evolution of mitogenomes in fish species from the Southern Ocean. I also work on molecular identification (barcoding, metabarcoding) of marine and freshwater fish and benthic species.
Antonina Dos Santos
Dr. Antonina dos Santos is a research scientist at the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) and leads the Plankton and crustacean Lab. Antonina has been studying taxonomy and ecology of crustacean larvae in Portugal seas.
Much of Antonina research has been the study of unexplored phase of living resources, focusing her studies on larval dispersal and recruitment to the origin population. Besides working on the dispersal and recruitment of crustacean larvae she has also done some work on the taxonomy of the adult phase of caridean shrimps (Decapoda). In 2016 she created the GelAvista citizen science project to monitor the stranding's of jellyfish in Portuguese coasts. Antonina research topics is to investigate how environmental conditions influence ecological patterns and processes, such as abundance and productivity, distribution, and size structure of plankton species. She has been involved in many scientific multidisciplinary projects subject to competitive tendering national and European, and she has been chief scientist on more than 15 multidisciplinary oceanographic surveys off the Portuguese coast. Since 2014 she is the Portuguese member of ICES Science Committee. Antonina has previously worked as Director of the Department of Sea and Marine Resources at IPMA.
Alain Dubois
Professor of zoology at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris. Specialist of the systematics of amphibians, of zoological taxonomy and nomenclature, and of biological terminology. Former Director of the herpetology laboratory of the MNHN. Former Chief Editor of “Amphibia-Reptilia” and “Alytes”. Chief Editor of “Bionomina”, Nomenclature Editor of “Zootaxa”. Large teaching experience in taxonomy and nomenclature, currently within the frame of the Distributed European School of Taxonomy.
Luis E Eguiarte
Professor of the Evolutionary Ecology Department at the Institute of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Daniel Erasmus
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Northern British Columbia. My research focuses on using molecular biology, chemical, and ecological analysis tools to characterize and understand the interactions between macro-invertebrates and fish.
Marcial Escudero
Assistant Professor of Plant Biology and Ecology, University of Seville (Spain). Past postdoctoral researcher at Doñana Biological Station (CSIC, Seville, Spain), at the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago (Illionois, USA) and at The Morton Arboretum (Lisle, Illinois, USA). Past PhD student at University Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain).
Noemi Fernandes
Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics and other disciplines at the Federal University of Itajuba, Brazil. She conducts research in the field of diversity and evolution of unicellular eukaryotes, with a special focus on the phylum Ciliophora. She is experienced in DNA metabarcoding analysis, molecular clock and protist phylogenomics.
Joseph J Gillespie
Dr. Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist with broad interests in organismal and molecular evolution. The major focus of his current research is deciphering the mechanisms by which obligate intracellular species of Rickettsiales (Alphaproteobacteria) invade, survive and replicate within eukaryotic cells.
In research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Gillespie utilizes phylogenetics, comparative genomics and bioinformatics to guide experimental research on various pathogenic species of Rickettsia and their associated arthropod vectors. His early research resulted in the reclassification of Rickettsia species and the identification of many lineage-specific pathogenicity factors. Through years of intense scrutinization of dozens of diverse rickettsial genomes, Dr. Gillespie and colleagues have described a large, dynamic mobilome for Rickettsia species, resulting in the identification of integrative conjugative elements as the vehicles for seeding Rickettsia genomes with many of the factors underlying obligate intracellular biology and pathogenesis. Via an iterative process of genome sequencing, phylogenomics, bioinformatics, and classical molecular biology and microbiology, Dr. Gillespie continues to lead and assist research projects on the characterization of rickettsial gene and protein function, as well as the description of cell envelope glycoconjugates.
Christopher J Glasby
Chris Glasby is a specialist in the systematics – taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography – of Annelida, specifically polychaetes (marine bristle worms). He is emeritus Curator of Annelids at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin and an Honorary Research Associate of the Australian Museum, Sydney.