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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:
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 - Winter 2020
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. Congratulations to Kristina, who defended her MSc thesis on coral recruitment following mass mortality. We're so proud of her! Kristina is continuing on as Lab Manager and Kiritimati Project Manager, January Our new collaborative paper, led by Ray Hilborn, about the effectiveness of fisheries management is out in PNAS!, January 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 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 |
University of Victoria, Department of Biology, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada
