Advisory Board and Editors Conservation Biology
Diaa Abd El-Moneim
My academic journey began with an MSc in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Suez Canal University, where my research focused on evaluating drought tolerance and disease resistance in wheat, providing a solid foundation in abiotic stress tolerance. This early work fueled my commitment to understanding and addressing plant resilience under stress conditions. Thanks to an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, I pursued my PhD at Complutense University of Madrid, where I investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying aluminum stress tolerance in rye. Notably, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship funded by AECID just before defending my thesis—a pivotal achievement that underscored the relevance of my research. This fellowship enabled me to join the National Center of Biotechnology (CNB) in Madrid. I gained expertise in proteomics, gene expression analysis, and molecular tool development to improve plant abiotic stress resilience. These experiences greatly expanded my knowledge of gene regulation and stress physiology and led to high-impact publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Abd El Moneim’s research encompasses multiple domains, including the study of morphological , physiological, and molecular mechanisms that govern plant responses to stress factors such as salinity, drought , aluminum toxicity, heat, and pathogens. His work in identifying gene families and stress-responsive proteins is complemented by his efforts to apply DNA barcoding and chloroplast genomic assemblies for species identification and development of molecular markers, as well as contributing to taxonomical and evolutionary concepts and identifying transcriptional regulators critical for stress adaptation, with particular emphasis on crops like wheat and wild plants adapted to extreme environments. His methodologies include designing and analyzing field trials , protein analysis, nucleic acid extraction, fingerprinting , GWAS , and the characterization of chloroplast genomes. Dr. Abd El Moneim’s expertise in molecular breeding and genomics focuses on improving abiotic stress tolerance in staple crops, especially for agriculture in developing countries.
Maria del Coro Arizmendi
Dr. María del Coro Arizmendi is a biologist and full-time professor within the Facultad de Estudios Superiores Iztacala at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She has over 26 years of academic experience focusing on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of birds. She has published extensively with 69 indexed articles, 11 books, and 35 book chapters, supported by funding from national and international agencies.
Her contributions include the "Gardens for Hummingbirds" project, promoting habitat restoration in urban areas, and have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Recognition in 2018 and the Academic Merit Award at UNAM.
Volker Bahn
I am an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Wright State University. Previously I was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University working in Macroecology with Brian McGill. My PhD is from the University of Maine in Wildlife Ecology with advisers Bill Krohn and Raymond O'Connor, and MS (German Diplom) in Conservation Biology from Philipps University Marburg with Harald Plachter and Peter Poschlod, in collaboration with Alan Burger from University of Victoria.
Francisco Balao
Francisco Balao is associate lecture of Plant Biology at the University of Seville; Past post-doc Marie-Curie fellow in the Department of Plant Systematics at the University of Vienna.
Research interests are mainly focused on how plant genomes interact with its environment across ecological and evolutionary timescale. We try to elucidate the mechanistic bases of the biodiversity through studies of molecular phylogenetics and phylogenomics, phylogeography, cytogenetics, ecophysiology, transcriptomics and reproductive biology.
Anastazia T Banaszak
Research Professor at the Unidad Académica de Sistemas Arrecifales (Reef Systems Academic Unit) a campus of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México located in Puerto Morelos in the Mexican Caribbean. Her undergraduate education was at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia followed by her graduate degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA and a postdoctoral appointment at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Maryland, USA.
Her research interests include the photobiology of phytoplankton, corals and coral reef dwelling-organisms as well as coral reproductive biology and ecology. Most recently, she has become involved in research on best practices for culturing coral species for use in restoration projects.
She is a topic editor for Coral Reefs, council member of the International Society for Reef Studies and serves on the scientific advisory boards for the Healthy Reefs Initiative and SECORE International and is on the steering committees of the Coral Restoration Consortium and the Meso-American Reef Restoration Group.
James Baxter-Gilbert
I am a Assistant Professor at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB, Canada, where I teach a variety of biology and science communication courses. The central core of my research examines how anthropogenic landscapes and actions impact wildlife. Commonly my research examines how phenotypic change, triggered by urbanisation or biological invasion, may allow reptiles and amphibians the ability to meet the challenges of a human-dominated world.
I completed my BSc (Biology), GDip (Science Communication), and MSc (Biology) at Laurentian University. My MSc research examined: (1) the effectiveness of mitigation structures at reducing reptile road mortality while maintaining population connectivity and (2) developing techniques for evaluating chronic stress in reptiles relating to roads and traffic. I completed my PhD at Macquarie University, which examined how Australian Water Dragons were responding to anthropogenic habitats through urban-derived divergent phenotypes; testing behavioural, morphological, and physiology traits between urbanise and natural-living populations. I then when on to conduct postdoctoral research at Stellenbosch University in the Centre for Invasion Biology examining how biological invasion were impacting the behavioural, morphological, and physiology traits of Guttural Toads as they transition from native to invasive, and urban to natural habitats. My research now examine the interplay between urban evolutionary ecology and invasion science, using herpetofauna as a model system.
Renato Benesperi
Associate Professor at the Department of Biology of the University of Florence.
His main research activity focuses on ecology, diversity and systematic of lichens. Research topics include the assessment and management of impacts of human activities (e.g. forest management, invasive alien species, climate changes) on lichen and plant communities.
Patrick Bergeron
Patrick Bergeron is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Bishop's University
His research centers around questions about the ecology, physiology and evolution of vertebrates. Under this large umbrella, work is separated into three main projects, on
Chipmunks, Humans and Wood frogs.
Rüdiger Bieler
Curator (research professor) in the Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago and Member of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago
Research interests include evolutionary systematics, biogeography, comparative morphology, and taxonomy, with special focus on marine Mollusca, especially Gastropoda and Bivalvia. As a “museum person,” he is particularly interested in the development and application of organismal, collections-based research, ranging from extensive new field surveys and large-scale specimen and data management issues, to the integration of morphological, paleontological, and molecular data to address biological research questions. He recently served as lead PI of the Bivalve Assembling-the-Tree-of-Life (BivAToL.org) effort and is involved in coral reef restoration projects and associated invertebrate surveys in the Florida Keys. Past offices include service as president of the American Malacological Society and of the International Society of Malacology (Unitas), and he currently a member of the steering committee of WoRMS (marinespecies.org) and a chief editor in the MolluscaBase.org effort.
Steven J Bograd
Dr. Steven Bograd is an oceanographer at NOAA’s Environmental Research Division in Monterey, California, and an Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Ocean Sciences, University of California-Santa Cruz. His research is focused on physical-biological interactions, eastern boundary current systems, climate variability, marine biologging, fisheries oceanography, and ecosystem-based management. He is currently involved in a number of research projects studying climate variability and its impacts on the marine ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean. Steven was co-Principal Investigator of the Census of Marine Life’s Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) program, and is currently an Editor-in-Chief at Fisheries Oceanography and co-chair of the PICES FUTURE Scientific Steering Committee. Steven received his PhD in Oceanography from the University of British Columbia in 1998, and held a post-doctoral fellowship at Scripps Institution of Oceanography before coming to NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center in 2001.
Alison G Boyer
Research scientist in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Chief Scientist of the ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) since 2016. The ORNL DAAC provides data management, curation, and data disimmenation for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Terrestrial Ecology Program.
Joint Faculty Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
General research interests: global change ecology, biogeography, and biodiversity. Her research uses remote sensing data, machine learning, and other data science tools to understand the past and present interactions between human societies and ecological communities.
Laura A Brannelly
Laura Brannelly is an Senior Lecturer in One Health and Biostatistics, and and Australia Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her current research project focuses on the effects of disease of reproduction in frogs, specifically in species of conservation concern. She hopes to be able to directly use the information generated from her research to further conservation efforts to protect Australia’s declining frog species.
Laura received her a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and Bachelor of Science in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2010. She went on to complete her Masters of Science in environmental biology from Tulane University in 2011 where she participated in a number of amphibian projects including clinical chemotherapy trials for treating Bd.
Laura received her PhD at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland Australia in 2016. For her PhD research she explored the interactions between frogs, disease, and the management of critically endangered species. She explored pathogenesis of disease on understudied and endangered species, as well as determining mechanisms of population persistence.
She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh from 2016-2018, where she is investigated the interactions between frogs, chytrid fungal disease, and the environment: specifically, how climate change impacts these relationships.