About me

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Liverpool, United Kingdom
I am interested in how we can use DNA sequences to understand biodiversity – how do we recognise species, and how are species related at taxonomic, ecological and geographic levels? My passion for biodiversity research has led me from the world’s largest natural history collection - Natural History Museum, London, where I completed my MSc, to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario - global centre for the international Barcode of Life, as a PhD student, and to the hyper-diverse tropics of Southeast Asia. The tropics will be the first regions to experience historically unprecedented climates and this will happen within the next decade. Consequently my recent research has focussed on understanding the effects of urbanisation and climate change on tropical and subtropical biodiversity - encompassing both species richness and ecological integrity across a diversity of taxonomic groups.

Jan 18, 2017

RESEARCH UPDATES JANUARY 2017

Urban butterflies
Our colleague Dr. Dong Hui at Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Shenzhen has produced a beautiful book on butterflies. It is a great achievement for her, and features some notes on our Butterfly Count Day held in Peninsular Malaysia in 2015.



More urban butterflies
Together with Dr. Dong Hui, we will be holding a symposium at the XIX International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen in July 2017. Our symposium under the theme Biodiversity, Resources and Conservation is T1-07: Urban parks: effects of management and planting schemes on insect diversity. The symposium now has presenters from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and Mexico, so there should be good chance for exchange of ideas and collaborations in this area of urban insect diversity.



More papers submitted
Myself and colleagues have been rushing to submit our papers before the Chinese New Year vacation.

New year advice

This blogpost has some good advice for starting the new year.