dr. LE (Lisa) Becking
Associate professor tropical marine biodiversityAs a marine biologist I study life in the sea. A key question of my research is how marine biodiversity adapts in response to environmental change over ecological and evolutionary timescales. When I look at all the diversity of species under water, I wonder how did these species come together, what keeps this biodiversity in place, and how will marine biodiversity respond to our changing seas. I believe that getting answers to these questions is vital if we want to set up sound, science-based conservation management.
Through collaborative research projects, I take a multi-facetted approach to biodiversity by applying techniques of genomics, bioinformatics, environmental analyses, paleontology, and taxonomy. These combined datasets allow a detailed dissection of the relative roles of ecological speciation, colonization, habitat filtering, and isolation in the formation of marine communities.