​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 - Fall 2019
Our new paper about shark and ray diversity in South Africa is out in PLoS ONE! Led by PhD student Geoff Osgood, this work represents our fantastic collaboration with Meaghen McCord of the South African Shark Conservancy, December

Congratulations to Jenny Smith, who defended her MSc thesis on the effects of climate change on coral reef herbivory!, December

Julia's new Royal Society of Canada report on Sustaining Canadian Marine Biodiversity, led by Jeffrey Hutchings, is out! Read the report and related article in Policy Options, November

Coral Resilience to Climate Change: We are recruiting one to two new PhD students and one new Post-doctoral researcher, who will work with our coral microbiome team, to investigate mechanisms of coral resilience to climate change using our long-term data sets from Kiritimati. September 2020 start date. 
​
​Help support our research on coral reefs and climate change! We are currently raising funds for our summer 2020 expedition to Kiritimati (Christmas) Island, where we will be studying how the coral reefs are recovering from the 2015-2016 El Niño. 




​









​

















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