Chief Investigator

Cynthia Riginos is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland. She is an evolutionary biologist with wide-ranging interests spanning population genomics, land & seascape genetics, molecular ecology, phylogeography, biogeography, speciation, hybridisation, invasive species, and conservation. Overall, her research seeks to understand how marine biodiversity is created, where that biodiversity has accumulated, and how this knowledge can be used preserve biodiversity and the processes that create it in a changing world. Cynthia is especially fond of reef fishes, molluscs, and corals but easily distracted by other taxa as well. She is an associate editor for Molecular Ecology, Molecular Ecology Resources, and the Journal of Biogeography. She is a founding member of both the Diversity in the Indo-Pacific Network (DIPnet), a consortium seeking to promote open data exchange and collaboration among genetic research groups and students working in the Indo-Pacific region, and the Genetic Observatories Metadatabase (GEOME), an infrastructure for linking accessioned genotypes with their spatial and other collecting metadata. Cynthia has been at UQ since 2006 and previously held an endowed postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Evolution & Comparative Genomics at Duke University. Her PhD (2000) and Master’s (1998) degrees are both from the University of Arizona in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Follow @CRiginos

---

Post docs

Iva Popovic

Evolutionary genomics of marine invertebrates

Email: iva.popovic@uqconnect.edu.au

Follow @iva_pops

My research takes advantage of natural biological systems and genomic methods to understand the evolutionary processes shaping genetic diversity and divergence between closely related species….(continued)

---

Katharine Prata

Delineating hard coral population structure in relation to the seascape

Supervisors: Riginos & Bongaerts

Email: k.prata@uq.net.au

Little is known about the spatial patterning of reef-building hard coral (Sclearactinia) populations…(continued)

---

Kevin Bairos-Novak

Just started!

---

PhD, MS, and Honours students

---

Ethan Briggs

Biogeography, phylogenetics and systematics of Australian tarantulas

Supervisors: Cook & Riginos
Email: ethan.briggs@uq.net.au

Tarantulas (Araneae, Theraphosidae) are amongst the largest, most diverse and widespread mygalomorph spiders in the world, however the knowledge on the Australian fauna is still building…(continued)

---

Ilha Byrne

Spatio-temporal dynamics of Crown-of-Thorns and other echinoderm larvae on the GBR as revealed by eDNA

Supervisors: Riginos, Uthicke & Popovic
Email: i.byrne@uq.net.au

I completed my Bachelor of Science at the University of Queensland in mid-2020 and subsequently commenced my honours project with the Riginos Research Group…(continued)

---

Kimberley Dunbar 

Dispersal, gene flow, and range shifts of marine organisms

Supervisors: Riginos & Pandolfi Email: kimberley.dunbar@uq.net.au

Kimberley Dunbar completed an undergraduate Bachelor of Marine Science, culminating in an honours degree studying estuarine and marine ecosystems at James Cook University…(continued)

---

Vhon Garcia

Biogeography of Philippine marine snakes

Supervisors: Riginos & Cook Email:
Follow @garciavhon

Marine snakes offer an excellent system to examine speciation and evolutionary transitions among a various habitats…(continued)

---

Samantha Howitt

Genomic analysis of Crown-of-Thorns seastars

Supervisors: Riginos & Popovic
Email: s.howitt@uq.net.au

I am an honours student commencing February 2021, having majored in genetics throughout my undergraduate coursework....(continued)

---

Hisatake Ishida

Hologenomic investigation of in hospite microbial symbionts in reef-building corals across the Great Barrier Reef

Supervisors: Chan & Riginos

Email:hisatake.ishida@uq.net.au

Reef-building corals harbour diverse communities of microbial symbionts that are critical to host health and survival….(continued)

---

Chuan Lei

Hybrid speciation in anemonefishes

Supervisors: Hobbs, Cheney, & Riginos
Email: c.lei@uq.net.au

Hybrid speciation has been believed to be important by botanists, but for animals, only until recently when more and more hybrid evidence based on genetics are being discovered, hybridization is gathering attention for its constructive role in animal evolution….(continued)

---

Zoe Meziere

Genetic diversity and climate change adaptation in corals of the Great Barrier Reef

Supervisors: Riginos, Popovic, Pandolfi

Email: z.meziere@uq.edu.au

Understanding the extent of genetic diversity between and within species …(continued)

---