Maria Dornelas

Maria Dornelas FRSE is a researcher in biodiversity and professor of biology based at St. Andrew's University. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021. Her research into biodiversity change[1] has challenged previous views, on the growth and decline of coral reefs[2] to understanding global biodiversity with data analysis on how species or ecosystems are changing in the Anthropocene.[3]

Maria Dornelas

FRSE
EducationBSc University of Lisbon, PhD James Cook University, post doctoral fellowship University of St. Andrews
Occupation(s)researcher and professor
EmployerUniversity of St. Andrews School of Biology
Known forresearch into biodiversity changes on coral reefs and global ecosystems; macroecology

Education and career

Maria Ana Azeredo de Dornelas completed her BSc at the University of Lisbon, graduating in 2000, and then a doctorate in the School of Marine Biology, studying 'biodiversity patterns in the context of neutral theory[4] at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia in 2006.[5] Her research challenged the orthodoxy of how coral reefs developed and died off. It was published in Nature[6] and called ' a paper that will turn our attention in a completely new direction' by Dr John Pandolfi of the University of Queensland.[2]

After her postdoctoral fellowship, in 2012 she became a Lecturer,[7] then Reader, now Professor, in the Centre for Biological Diversity of the School of Biology at University of St Andrews.[1] She was external examiner for University College London on 'Predicting population trends under environmental change: comparing methods against observed data'.[8] She is a visiting professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh.[9]

Her interest in the ecology of the tropical areas, and coral in particular grew during her undergraduate honours project in Mozambique. Her fellowship included working with the University of Aveiro[7] and the ARC Centre of Excellence Coral Reef Studies on 'morphological and life history diversity of corals' (2008-9).[4] When not focused on biodiversity change, macroecology or reef ecology, her research also looked into Trinidadian guppies, in considering polyandry in fish.[10]

Selected publications

Dornelas's key published works are listed by the University of St Andrews.[11] She compiled and standardised a database of publicly available timeseries,[12] which is the basis of the BioTIME project.[13]

Her funded project from the Leverhulme Trust (2019-2029) is generating datasets, and cross-discipline collaborations.[14][15]

Citations can be found in Google Scholar[16]

Biodiversity debates

Dornelas has engaged in a number of public outreach events such as talking to the British Ecological Society on 'Is biodiversity declining?'[17] She was a member of the Young Academy of Scotland, and was positively debating the future of higher education and its resilience in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.[18]

In 2020 Dornelas contributed to the World Economic Forum discussion on How forest loss has changed biodiversity across the globe over the last 150 years.[19] And her collaborative work, published in Nature in 2020 has contributed to debate on vertebrate species decline, for example in a Living Planet Report,[3] showing that average declines in populations do not reflect some rapidly declining species at risk.[20]

She has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.[1]

References
  1. "Dr Maria Dornelas FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 5 May 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  2. "Scientists torpedo reef theory – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies". www.coralcoe.org.au. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  3. Leung, Brian; Hargreaves, Anna L.; Greenberg, Dan A.; McGill, Brian; Dornelas, Maria; Freeman, Robin (December 2020). "Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines". Nature. 588 (7837): 267–271. Bibcode:2020Natur.588..267L. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2920-6. hdl:10023/23213. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 33208939. S2CID 227065128.
  4. "Maria Dornelas – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies". www.coralcoe.org.au. 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  5. Dornelas, Maria (21 July 2014). "ORCID 0000-0003-2077-7055". orcid.org. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  6. Dornelas, Maria; Connolly, Sean R.; Hughes, Terence P. (2 March 2006). "Coral reef diversity refutes the neutral theory of biodiversity". Nature. 440 (7080): 80–82. Bibcode:2006Natur.440...80D. doi:10.1038/nature04534. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 16511493. S2CID 4419325.
  7. "Maria Dornelas". Young Academy of Scotland. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  8. "Predicting population trends under environmental change: comparing methods against observed data - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  9. "Maria Dornelas". University of Edinburgh Research Explorer. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  10. BARBOSA, M.; DORNELAS, M.; MAGURRAN, A. E. (28 September 2010). "Effects of polyandry on male phenotypic diversity". Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 23 (11): 2442–2452. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02105.x. ISSN 1010-061X. PMID 20874847. S2CID 11395669.
  11. "Maria Dornelas - Research publications - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  12. Dornelas, Maria; Antão, Laura H.; Moyes, Faye; Bates, Amanda E.; Magurran, Anne E.; Adam, Dušan; Akhmetzhanova, Asem A.; Appeltans, Ward; Arcos, José Manuel; Arnold, Haley; Ayyappan, Narayanan (July 2018). "BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene". Global Ecology and Biogeography. 27 (7): 760–786. doi:10.1111/geb.12729. ISSN 1466-822X. PMC 6099392. PMID 30147447.
  13. "BioTIME— Global database of biodiversity time series". biotime.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  14. York, University of. "People". University of York. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  15. "Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity - University of St Andrews". risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  16. "Maria Dornelas". scholar.google.pt. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  17. Ecology Live 2021 with Maria Dornelas - Is biodiversity declining?, retrieved 24 September 2021
  18. "History shows investment in Higher Education will benefit society as a whole - Maria Dornelas". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  19. "How forest loss has changed biodiversity across the globe over the last 150 years". World Economic Forum. 22 June 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  20. Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Beattie, Andrew; Ceballos, Gerardo; Crist, Eileen; Diamond, Joan; Dirzo, Rodolfo; Ehrlich, Anne H.; Harte, John; Harte, Mary Ellen; Pyke, Graham (2021). "Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future". Frontiers in Conservation Science. 1: 9. doi:10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419. ISSN 2673-611X.
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