Organisms and environment

Find out more about our Danau Girang Field Centre in Malaysia

We focus on the biology of whole organisms and their roles and interactions in changing ecosystems, in infection and health and at the genetic level.

Our aim is to understand the ecological, health and genetic consequences of environmental change on biological diversity. Our approach is to focus on processes and prediction, combining ecological, experimental and molecular approaches, in contrasting groups of organisms. PhD projects tend to be multidisciplinary in nature, and range from field ecology to experimental microbiology to population genomics.

We have a field centre in Sabah, Malaysia and we are also responsible for maintaining the School's Molecular Biology and Analytical support facilities. Many projects are run in collaboration with Universities and Research Institutes elsewhere in the UK and abroad as well as with other departments within Cardiff University (such as Earth and Ocean Sciences, Chemistry, Engineering, Social Sciences, City and Regional Planning).

Research areas

All the major groups are studied, including animals, plants, and microorganisms; bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and fungi. Research is broadly divided into three groups:

Genomes, Diversity and Adaptation
Individuals, Ecosystems and Global Change
Microbes, Infection and Communities

Our research areas include:

Microbial and soil ecology
Microbial communities in sediments and deep sub-seafloor
Endangered species research
Genomics, metagenomics, population and environmental genetics of plants, animals and microbes
Ecotoxicology in aquatic and terrestrial environments
Community ecology including pest management
Interactions between organisms and their food resources
Behavioural and evolutionary ecology
Chemical ecology, waste management and bioremediation
Population dynamics in freshwater and terrestrial systems
Predator-prey and host-parasite interactions
Epidemiology and pathogenesis, including medically important bacteria

Staff members

Name	Area of interest
Professor Andy Weightman - Head of Division	Genetic adaptation of microbes to environmental challenges, sub-surface molecular microbiology, molecular systematics and metagenomics.
Dr Hefin Jones - Deputy Head of Division	Community ecology, climate change, entomology, microbial/soil ecology.
Dr Colin Berry	Enzyme targets for antiparasitic drugs. Insecticidal protein toxins from Bacillus species.
Dr Kelly BéruBé	Toxicogenomics of airborne pollutants.
Professor Lynne Boddy	Fungal community ecology, forest pathology, use of neural networks in species identification.
Professor Michael W. Bruford	Molecular ecology, conservation biology, adaptation.
Professor Jo Cable - Divisional Postgraduate Tutor	Host-parasite interactions, molecular and behavioural ecology.
Dr Elizabeth Chadwick	Cardiff University Otter Project.
Dr Tom Connor	Population genomics of bacterial pathogens, bioinformatics and translational microbiology.
Dr Isabelle Durance	Ecosystem ecology, landscape ecology, sustainability.
Dr Benoit Goossens	Molecular evolution, molecular ecology and behavioural ecology.
Dr Sian Griffiths	Fish biology, behavioural ecology.
Dr Frank Hailer	Molecular ecology. Evolutionary genetics. Conservation biology. Phylogeography. Hybridization. Mammals, birds.
Dr Rhys Jones	Herpetology.
Professor Peter Kille	Heavy metal stress, metallobiology, eco-toxico-genomics.
Dr Joanne Lello	Co-infection biology, host pathogen relationships, community ecology.
Professor David Lloyd	Eukaryotic microbiology, control of energy metabolism; oscillations, rhythms and clocks.
Professor Esh Mahenthiralingam	Bacterial infectious diseases and molecular microbiology.
Professor Julian Marchesi	Microbiology of the gut, bioactive agents from marine sponges.
Dr Carsten Müller	Chemical ecology, environmental chemistry, waste management.
Professor Steve Ormerod	River catchment ecology and avian biology.
Dr Pablo Orozco ter Wengel	Genomics, adaptation, conservation.
Dr Sarah Perkins	Ecology of wildlife diseases, network science, real-time dynamics of infections using reporters, invasive species of ecology.
Dr Peter Randerson	Landscape ecology.
Dr Julia Sanchez Vilas	Ecology and evolution of plant sexual systems, sexual dimorphism, cost of reproduction, plant responses to stress, plant ecophysiology, plant population dynamics.
Professor Bill Symondson	Community ecology, predator prey relationships, pest management.
Dr Rob Thomas	Avian behaviour, ecosystems and climate.
Dr Ian Vaughan	Community and freshwater ecology