Maria Dornelas FRSE is a researcher in biodiversity and professor of biology based at St. Andrew's University. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021. Her research into biodiversity change[1] has challenged previous views, on the growth and decline of coral reefs[2] to understanding global biodiversity with data analysis on how species or ecosystems are changing in the Anthropocene.[3]
Maria Dornelas | |
|---|---|
| Education | BSc University of Lisbon, PhD James Cook University, post doctoral fellowship University of St. Andrews |
| Occupation(s) | researcher and professor |
| Employer | University of St. Andrews School of Biology |
| Known for | research into biodiversity changes on coral reefs and global ecosystems; macroecology |
Education and career
editMaria Ana Azeredo de Dornelas completed her BSc at the University of Lisbon, graduating in 2000, and then a doctorate in the School of Marine Biology, studying 'biodiversity patterns in the context of neutral theory[4] at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia in 2006.[5] Her research challenged the orthodoxy of how coral reefs developed and died off. It was published in Nature[6] and called ' a paper that will turn our attention in a completely new direction' by Dr John Pandolfi of the University of Queensland.[2]
After her postdoctoral fellowship, in 2012 she became a Lecturer,[7] then Reader, now Professor, in the Centre for Biological Diversity of the School of Biology at University of St Andrews.[1] She was external examiner for University College London on 'Predicting population trends under environmental change: comparing methods against observed data'.[8] She is a visiting professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh.[9]
Her interest in the ecology of the tropical areas, and coral in particular grew during her undergraduate honours project in Mozambique. Her fellowship included working with the University of Aveiro[7] and the ARC Centre of Excellence Coral Reef Studies on 'morphological and life history diversity of corals' (2008-9).[4] When not focused on biodiversity change, macroecology or reef ecology, her research also looked into Trinidadian guppies, in considering polyandry in fish.[10]
Selected publications
editDornelas's key published works are listed by the University of St Andrews.[11] She compiled and standardised a database of publicly available timeseries,[12] which is the basis of the BioTIME project.[13]
Her funded project from the Leverhulme Trust (2019-2029) is generating datasets, and cross-discipline collaborations.[14][15]
Citations can be found in Google Scholar[16]
Biodiversity debates
editDornelas has engaged in a number of public outreach events such as talking to the British Ecological Society on 'Is biodiversity declining?'[17] She was a member of the Young Academy of Scotland, and was positively debating the future of higher education and its resilience in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.[18]
In 2020 Dornelas contributed to the World Economic Forum discussion on How forest loss has changed biodiversity across the globe over the last 150 years.[19] And her collaborative work, published in Nature in 2020 has contributed to debate on vertebrate species decline, for example in a Living Planet Report,[3] showing that average declines in populations do not reflect some rapidly declining species at risk.[20]
She has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Dr Maria Dornelas FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 5 May 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ a b "Scientists torpedo reef theory – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies". www.coralcoe.org.au. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ a b Leung, Brian; Hargreaves, Anna L.; Greenberg, Dan A.; McGill, Brian; Dornelas, Maria; Freeman, Robin (December 2020). "Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines". Nature. 588 (7837): 267–271. Bibcode:2020Natur.588..267L. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2920-6. hdl:10023/23213. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 33208939. S2CID 227065128.
- ^ a b "Maria Dornelas – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies". www.coralcoe.org.au. 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ Dornelas, Maria (21 July 2014). "ORCID 0000-0003-2077-7055". orcid.org. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ Dornelas, Maria; Connolly, Sean R.; Hughes, Terence P. (2 March 2006). "Coral reef diversity refutes the neutral theory of biodiversity". Nature. 440 (7080): 80–82. Bibcode:2006Natur.440...80D. doi:10.1038/nature04534. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 16511493. S2CID 4419325.
- ^ a b "Maria Dornelas". Young Academy of Scotland. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ "Predicting population trends under environmental change: comparing methods against observed data - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ "Maria Dornelas". University of Edinburgh Research Explorer. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ BARBOSA, M.; DORNELAS, M.; MAGURRAN, A. E. (28 September 2010). "Effects of polyandry on male phenotypic diversity" (PDF). Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 23 (11): 2442–2452. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02105.x. ISSN 1010-061X. PMID 20874847. S2CID 11395669.
- ^ "Maria Dornelas - Research publications - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ Dornelas, Maria; Antão, Laura H.; Moyes, Faye; Bates, Amanda E.; Magurran, Anne E.; Adam, Dušan; Akhmetzhanova, Asem A.; Appeltans, Ward; Arcos, José Manuel; Arnold, Haley; Ayyappan, Narayanan (July 2018). "BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene". Global Ecology and Biogeography. 27 (7): 760–786. doi:10.1111/geb.12729. ISSN 1466-822X. PMC 6099392. PMID 30147447.
- ^ "BioTIME— Global database of biodiversity time series". biotime.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
- ^ York, University of. "People". University of York. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ "Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ "Maria Dornelas". scholar.google.pt. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ Ecology Live 2021 with Maria Dornelas - Is biodiversity declining?, retrieved 24 September 2021
- ^ "History shows investment in Higher Education will benefit society as a whole - Maria Dornelas". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ "How forest loss has changed biodiversity across the globe over the last 150 years". World Economic Forum. 22 June 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
- ^ Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Beattie, Andrew; Ceballos, Gerardo; Crist, Eileen; Diamond, Joan; Dirzo, Rodolfo; Ehrlich, Anne H.; Harte, John; Harte, Mary Ellen; Pyke, Graham (2021). "Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future". Frontiers in Conservation Science. 1: 9. doi:10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419. ISSN 2673-611X.
External links
edit- Maria Dornelas publications indexed by Google Scholar