Welcome
Research in the Baum Lab is motivated by a fundamental desire to understand how human activities are changing marine ecosystems, and what the consequences of these changes are for nature and for people. Our current research centres around the following questions: 

• How are marine ecosystems structured and how do they function in the absence of human disturbance?  How do diversity, structure, function and resilience vary across natural environmental gradients?  
• How are climate change, overexploitation, and pollution changing marine ecosystems? How do multiple stressors, such as these, interact and alter marine ecosystems? 

We investigate these questions primarily on tropical coral reefs, on organisms ranging from apex predators to microscopic dinoflagellates. We do so using a suite of approaches including statistical models of large observational data sets - which allow us to empirically test predictions from related theory and small-scale experiments at the ecosystem and global scale - as well as field observations and experiments, molecular analyses and bioinformatics, stable isotope analyses, interviews, historical ecology, and meta-analyses. Our research spans across broad temporal and spatial scales, incorporates principles from population, community and ecosystem ecology, conservation science, and fisheries science and is highly collaborative. Our current foci are tropical coral reefs and temperate eelgrass beds.
We are committed to open science and data sharing, and to outreach aimed at enhancing public understanding of our research, ocean conservation, and science in general. Our overarching goal is to make scientific discoveries that advance understanding of oceanic ecosystems, and inform and inspire effective solutions for their conservation. 

News - Spring 2018
The Baum Lab is recruiting new PhD students and Post-doctoral researchers to conduct field-based and macroecological coral reef research. I am especially interested in recruiting a talented, highly quantitative post-doctoral researcher with advanced bioinformatics and statistics skills to analyze our coral-Symbiodinium and microbe data, collected from Kiritimati over the course of the 2015-2016 El Niño. Apply now for this funded Postdoctoral Position - 'Microbiome Influences on Coral Resilience to Climate Change'. I am also seeking one other Postdoctoral Fellow who could work on various aspects of coral community change (e.g. coral habitat complexity, fish diversity, fish trophic dynamics) following a mass mortality event - prospective fellows would need to apply for an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, or a David H. Smith Conservation Postdoctoral Fellowship. 


Julia, Kristina, and the rest of the team are heading out to Kiritimati. Follow us on the Twitter at #Kiritimati2018, June 2018

Julia had a great time speaking about "Overcoming Academia's Demons and Leveling the Playing Field for Women in Science" and coral reefs with students and post-docs at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, May 2018

Thanks to NSERC for an extraordinary Awards day. Julia has been awarded Canada's top mid-career research award, the EWR Steacie Fellowship, Ottawa, May 2018

Julia spoke about Canadian government ocean science funding priorities at the Oceans Research in Canada Alliance (ORCA) Workshop, Ottawa, April 2018







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University of Victoria, Department of Biology, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada