Lab PI, Director of Marine Biology @ Univ of Essex
Hello! I’m originally a coral geek. The tropical shallows were my first love; this love was cemented through work at UNEP-WCMC, FFI, and as Director of ReefDoctor on the beautiful ‘Red Island’ of Madagascar. My PhD introduced me to corals of the deep (they occur in every ocean and can be found down to 8000m!), specifically those in Antarctic waters. I studied their evolution, their taxonomy, and their place within the wider benthic (seafloor) community. I still love corals but genomics has quickly become my second love. Genomics can answer some of the big questions of the deep – How well connected are populations? Which populations are sources and which sinks? Where did coral diversity evolve from? When did diversity evolve? In our lab this modern genomic toolset has also been put to good use on whelks, fish, zooxanthellae, and even my first love, those shallow water corals.
What I do…
- Deep sea
- Genomics
- Exploration
- Corals
Taylor Lab 