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Ecological dynamics of corals at their high-latitude range limits

Date
Date
Wednesday 8 February 2017, 14.00
Venue
Astbury Building 11B
Speaker
Dr Brigitte Sommer
Event
Ecology and Evolution Group seminar (Biological Sciences)

Abstract

In Australia and Japan, diverse coral assemblages extend along a natural stress gradient from the tropics to their pole-ward range limits in temperate regions. Our ability to predict how corals in these marginal habitats will respond to climate change relies on better understanding the mechanisms that shape their biodiversity patterns. I will present the results of a broad latitudinal field study I conducted in the subtropical-to-temperate transition zone in eastern Australia and will describe how I used trait-based, phylogenetic community ecology and species distribution modelling approaches to better understand how these marginal reefs function and may be altered by climate change.

Biography

Dr. Brigitte Sommer is a Research Fellow in the School of Biology at the University of Leeds. Her research combines field ecology and statistical modelling to understand the ecology of marine species living at biogeographic transition zones and how they may be affected by climate change. She did her PhD in Prof. John Pandolfi’s Lab at The University of Queensland, Australia, where she studied ecological dynamics of corals at their high-latitude range limits.

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