Advisory Board and Editors Biodiversity
Martha Vives
Full professor, Biological Sciences Department, Los Andes University. Vice dean for Research Affairs, School of Sciences. Past coordinator for the Microbiology program.
Khor Waiho
Researcher at the Institute of Tropical Aquaculture and Fisheries, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. Dr. Khor Waiho obtained his Ph.D. in Aquaculture from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (2016) and completed a 2-year postdoctoral (Biology, 2017-2019) at Shantou University, China. His current research focus includes the impact of climate change on crustacean growth and reproductive biology, population biology and fishery, and the aquaculture of economically important crustacean species.
Xugao Wang
Xugao Wang is a professor of forest ecology at Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang, China. He received a B.S. from Qufu Normal University in 2001, and completed his Ph.D. in ecology from the Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS in 2006.
Currently, he is interested in causes and consequences of biodiversity in natural forests. The causes of interest include ecological processes, such as species interaction, environmental filtering and dispersal limitation maintaining and influencing biodiversity in natural forests. Recently, he is especially interested in the role of soil microbes and environmental variables in determining spatio-temporal patterns of plant diversity. The consequences interested him most are the effects of multi-trophic biodiversity on forest ecosystem functioning and stability.
Jianjun Wang
Dr. Jianjun Wang is Professor of Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He studies microbial biogeography and global change. His main topics are related to the questions on how microbial diversity and community composition varied within Earth’s surface and subsurface, especially aquatic environments. He is using self-obtained large microbial data sets, in-situ experiments, as well as modeling methods to achieve these answers.
Owen S Wangensteen
PhD in Biology, PhD in Chemistry. Lecturer in Marine Zoology at the Dpt. of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona
Research interests include: eukaryotic metabarcoding, marine molecular ecology, marine biodiversity, phylogeography, and bioinformatics.
Eric J Ward
I’m a statistician / quantitative ecologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NOAA) in Seattle and an affiliate professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS) at the University of Washington. I work on a wide range of statistical problems – population dynamics, extinction risk, conservation genetics, fisheries stock assessment, reproductive success studies, etc. Most of the species I study are fish, but I also work with data from marine mammals, seabirds, and turtles. Much of my recent modeling interests have been pursuing applications of multivariate state-space time series and spatio-temporal models, isotope mixing models, and Bayesian model selection techniques.
Darren F Ward
I am an entomologist whose research interests are focused on the threats of invasive insects, the diversity of parasitoid communities, and the utilisation of data from natural history collections in ecological research.
Michael Wink
Prof. Dr. Michael Wink is Professor of Biology and Director at the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology of Heidelberg University; Head of Biology Department (1989-2019). Senior professor since 2019. Editor of Diversity, Biotechnology Journal and Journal of Ornithology. Member of several editorial boards and scientific societies. Author of over 20 books and over 900 original peer-reviewed publications.
L. LaReesa Wolfenbarger
Dr. Wolfenbarger conducts research on the ecology and conservation of grassland species and communities in the agricultural landscape of the Great Plains. She also devotes research time to synthesizing information for policymakers and resource managers so that scientific results are readily available for decision makers.
Huiting Wu
Dr. Huiting Wu is a lecturer in the School of Geosciences and Surveying Engineering at China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing) in Beijing, China.
Dr. Wu's research focus is on taxonomy, palaeoecology and morphology of brachiopod, mass extinction and biotic recovery. She is also interested in ecology and morphological changes of brachiopod in modern ocean, bivalves and ammonoids.
Dr. Wu is a graduate of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). Between 2016-2017, she was a visiting scholar in Deakin University. Between 2018-2010, she was a post-doctors fellow in the Peking University.
Mark T Young
’m a Scottish evolutionary biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist. My research focus is on major evolutionary transitions: understanding both how and why the vertebrate body-plan radically transforms when adapting to new niches. My interdisciplinary approach including biomechanics, comparative anatomy, neuroanatomy, nomenclature, philosophy of biology, phylogenetics, and systematics/taxonomy.
My areas of research are:
(1) The land-to-sea transition of fossil marine crocodylomorphs. This focuses on the biology of Thalattosuchia (marine crocs that evolved flippers and a tail fin during the Age of Dinosaurs). My research includes understanding their endocranial anatomy, sensory systems, evolutionary relationships, and morphofunctional diversity. Finally, what do thalattosuchians tell us about common evolutionary pathways seen in secondarily aquatic vertebrates?
(2) The air-to-land transition within Columbidae (pigeons and doves). This focuses on the biology of the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and the Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria). My research includes understanding their skeletal anatomy, locomotory biomechanics, and evolutionary relationships. Finally, what does the Dodo tell us about common evolutionary pathways seen in secondarily flightless birds.
(3) Philosophy of biology. The goal of the sciences is to cumulatively gather descriptive and ultimately causal understanding of objects and events. My research includes ensuring that my work is compatible with the goal of scientific inquiry, and to promote a view of biology and biological research that encapsulates biological theory, applied technological innovation, with a philosophical underpinning.
(4) Promotion of best practice in descriptive biology and zoological nomenclature. Given the current ‘age of extinctions’ we are living through and the dire shortage of trained taxonomists, there is a greater need than ever to ensure that taxonomic and descriptive research meets best practice and is compatible with the goal of scientific inquiry.
I am an ICZN Commissioner, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and a member of the Royal Society of Biology (RSB). I have Chartered Biologist status, registered with the RSB. I am a member of two IUCN Species Survival Commission groups: the Crocodile Specialist Group, and the Pigeon & Dove Specialist Group. I am the editor-in-chief of Historical Biology, and also an academic editor for PeerJ and PeerJ Open Advances in Zoology.
Matteo Zucchetta
Matteo Zucchetta obtained his PhD thesis entitled "Habitat distribution models for the management of fishery and conservation concern species in lagoon environment” at the University Ca’ Foscari Venice (Italy). He has previously covered the position of researcher University Ca’ Foscari Venice (Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics) and at the National Centre for Coastal Zone Protection and Characterization, Marine Climatology and for Operational Oceanography of the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). Since 2020 he is a researcher of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy. His work was carried out in the framework of different EU and Italian projects, and his main research topics are: 1) analysis of the spatial distribution of plant and animal species in coastal and transitional water bodies; 2) Community ecology in transitional water ecosystems; 3) Use of fish fauna assemblages as indicators of ecosystem ecological status; 4) Ecological models for food webs analysis; 5) Climate changes effects on aquatic ecosystems.