Marine conservation genetics & microbial diversity
Conservation of marine resources represents a significant scientific and management challenge. It is now recognized that the design of marine protected areas, fisheries management, and understanding how increasing stress on the marine environment due to coastal development and global climate change requires research spanning microbial level to ecosystem level processes. Novel integrative research and management approaches are needed employing the best tools available to understand the linkages from microbial biodiversity to population genetic and ecological connectivity amongst marine organisms ranging from marine microbiota to free-ranging top herbivores & predators.
Several IGERT Participating Faculty and Fellows are developing collaborative research projects requiring a transdisciplinary approach to address these problems.
Contact ECPB for more information ecpb@hawaii.edu.