Advisory Board and Editors Biodiversity
Mark C. Benfield
Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University. Adjunct (Guest Investigator) in the Biology Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Member and Past-Chair of the ICES Working Group on Zooplankton Ecology, member of the ICES Working Group on Integrated Morphological and Molecular Taxonomy, Director of the Gulf SERPENT Project. Ph.D. (Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences) from Texas A&M University.
Rüdiger Bieler
Curator (research professor) in the Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago and Member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago
Research interests include evolutionary systematics, biogeography, comparative morphology, and taxonomy, with special focus on marine Mollusca, especially Gastropoda and Bivalvia. As a “museum person,” he is particularly interested in the development and application of organismal, collections-based research, ranging from extensive new field surveys and large-scale specimen and data management issues, to the integration of morphological, paleontological, and molecular data to address biological research questions. He recently served as lead PI of the Bivalve Assembling-the-Tree-of-Life (BivAToL.org) effort and is involved in coral reef restoration projects and associated invertebrate surveys in the Florida Keys. Past offices include service as president of the American Malacological Society and of the International Society of Malacology (Unitas), and he currently a member of the steering committee of WoRMS (marinespecies.org) and a chief editor in the MolluscaBase.org effort.
Mario Brauns
Researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ and head of the food web ecology lab.
Research interests include: Lotic ecosystem processes, freshwater food webs, benthic secondary production, functional assessment, stable isotopes, invasive species.
Mya Breitbart
Professor at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science studying viral and microbial ecology
Barry W Brook
Barry Brook, a conservation biologist and modeller, is an ARC Australian Laureate Professor and Chair of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. Leader of the Dynamics of Eco-evolutionary Patterns (DEEP) research group and the UTAS node of CABAH, Barry is a highly cited scientist, having published three books, over 350 refereed papers, and many popular articles. His awards include the 2006 Australian Academy of Science Fenner Medal, the 2010 Community Science Educator of the Year and 2013 Scopus Researcher of the Year. He focuses on global change biology, ecological dynamics, paleoenvironments, energy systems, and statistical-simulation models.
John F Bruno
John Bruno is a marine ecologist and Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research is focused on marine biodiversity, coral reef ecology and conservation and the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. John earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in disease ecology. He is currently working primarily in Belize, the Bahamas, Cuba, and the Galapagos Islands.
Viktor V. Brygadyrenko
Dr. Viktor Brygadyrenko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology and Ecology at Oles Honchar Dnipro National University.
His main scientific projects include:
- Effect of heavy metal ions on the development of invertebrates.
- Morphological variability in populations of beetles in conditions of anthropogenically altered ecosystems.
- Trophic relations of species in litter macrofauna of Ukraine.
- Structure of litter macrofauna communities in forest ecosystems of Ukraine.
- Influence of medicinal plants, flavourings and source materials, approved for use in and on foods, on eggs and larvae of nematodes of mammals.
- Ecological niches of ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in Ukraine.
- Morphometric variation in ground beetles.
Ornella Calderini
I have a PhD from the University of Vienna, Austria, on plant MAP kinase signalling. Currently I am a staff scientist of the National Research Council at the Institute of Bioscience and Bioresources in Italy. I am curating a mutant collection of the model specie Medicago truncatula. I am using different approaches to understand gene function in several aspects of plant science (e.g development, synthesis of secondary compounds). I have an interest in characterization and valorization of local plant genetic resources.
Anthony Caravaggi
Dr. Anthony Caravaggi is a Lecturer in Conservation Biology and course leader for BSc (Hons) Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the The University of South Wales.
His work is broadly focussed on conducting research that increases understanding of species ecologies and informs conservation and management processes.
Gabriele Casazza
My current research interests focus on the study of biogeography and conservation of endemic plants. Research topics include the effects of past and future climate change, the reproductive biology, the phylogeography and the taxonomy.
Gabriela Castellanos-Morales
For my bachelor's degree thesis I studied the habitat use and food habits of ring-tailed cats (Bassariscus astutus) in and urban reserve located within Mexico City. During my master's degree I started working with population genetics and conservation of black-tailed prairie dogs in Chihuahua. For my Ph.D. I worked on the phylogeography and conservation genetics of two species of prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus and C. mexicanus).
My main research interests focus in understanding the evolutionary processes that promote lineage and species divergence and that affect species’ abilities to adapt to environmental change. I am also interested in determining the effect of anthropogenic activities on genetic variation of wildlife populations and in the development of conservation strategies to mitigate these effects.
My future research focuses on using genomic, transcriptomic and metagenomic approaches to address evolutionary ecology and conservation genetics questions. Specifically, I am interested in the conservation of adaptive genetic variation in wild populations through the search of signals of selection and local adaptation and to understand the role of inbreeding and outbreeding depression in population extinction. This information will allow making predictions about species responses to future environmental change.
Karen Chan
Assistant Professor, Biology Department, Swarthmore College. Adjunct Assistant Professor, Division of Life Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.