Organisms and environment
Understanding how organisms and their environment interact, including biology, ecology, and environmental change.
Find out more about our Danau Girang Field Centre in Malaysia
Research in the division of Organisms and Environment aims to understand how organisms and their environment interact with one another. This includes studies of fundamental biology, ecological health, and consequences of environmental change on biological diversity. Understanding interventions based on these topics could support conservation in a period of global change.
Research areas
Our Organisms and Environment research focuses on three specific areas:
- Global change and resource resilience – exploring the effect of climate change, and other processes driven by man, on organisms and ecosystems.
- Conservation and evolution – to elucidate how disease, parasitism and habitat loss affect species survival.
- Understanding microbiomes and parasites – addressing the challenges of understanding how microbiomes interact with their hosts to drive both health and disease.
Collaborations
This area of research is transdisciplinary in nature and the division has strong links with research groups across the sciences and social sciences, as well as direct links with University Research Institutes. This includes:
- Water Research Institute
- Data Innovation Institute
- Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Malaysia.
This division also has strong external affiliations with the Environment Agency, Natural Resource Wales, and British Ecological Society, as well as multiple charities and non-government organisations.
Fellowship and post-graduate applications
We welcome approaches by potential fellowship applicants whose interests map onto the divisional research areas.
We also welcome applications from PhD students with research interests that fit our strategic areas. Please contact biosi-pg@cardiff.ac.uk for more information.
Other post-graduate opportunities include:
Staff members
| Name | Area of interest |
|---|---|
| Professor Jo Cable - Head of Division | Host-parasite interactions, molecular and behavioural ecology. |
| Professor Peter Kille - Deputy Head of Division, Research | Heavy metal stress, metallobiology, eco-toxico-genomics. |
| Dr Rob Thomas - Deputy Head of Division, Teaching | Animal behaviour in changing environments, conservation in practice. |
| Dr Cedric Berger | Host-pathogen interactions, molecular and cellular microbiology. |
| Professor Colin Berry | Enzyme targets for antiparasitic drugs. Insecticidal protein toxins from Bacillus species. |
| Dr Kelly BéruBé | Toxicogenomics of airborne pollutants. |
| Dr Tom Rhys Bishop | Biogeographic patterns of species, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in ants, invertebrates and ectotherms |
| Professor Lynne Boddy | Fungal community ecology, forest pathology, use of neural networks in species identification. |
| Dr Helen Brown | |
| Professor Michael W. Bruford | Molecular ecology, conservation biology, adaptation. |
| Dr Elizabeth Chadwick | Cardiff University Otter Project. |
| Dr Sarah Christofides | Quantitative ecology, microbial community ecology and food security. |
| Professor Tom Connor | Population genomics of bacterial pathogens, bioinformatics and translational microbiology. |
| Professor Isabelle Durance | Ecosystem ecology, landscape ecology, sustainability. |
| Professor Benoît Goossens | Molecular evolution, molecular ecology and behavioural ecology. |
| Dr Siân Griffiths | Fish biology, behavioural ecology. |
| Dr Frank Hailer | Molecular ecology. Evolutionary genetics. Conservation biology. Phylogeography. Hybridization. Mammals, birds. |
| Dr Hefin Jones | Community ecology, climate change, entomology, microbial/soil ecology. |
| Dr Rhys Jones (Teaching and Scholarship) | Herpetology. |
| Dr William Kay (Teaching and Scholarship) | Tutor in Data Analysis and Statistics |
| Dr Joanne Lello | Co-infection biology, host pathogen relationships, community ecology. |
| Professor David Lloyd (Honorary) | Eukaryotic microbiology, control of energy metabolism; oscillations, rhythms and clocks. |
| Professor Esh Mahenthiralingam | Bacterial infectious diseases and molecular microbiology. |
Professor Julian Marchesi (Honorary) | Microbiology of the gut, bioactive agents from marine sponges. |
| Dr Carsten Müller - OnE Postgraduate Tutor | Chemical ecology, environmental chemistry, waste management. |
| Alex Mullins (Teaching and Scholarship) | |
| Professor Steve Ormerod | River catchment ecology and avian biology. |
| Dr Pablo Orozco-terWengel | 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 (Teaching and Scholarship) | Landscape ecology. |
| Dr Isa-Rita Russo | Landscape genetics/genomics and conservation genetics |
| 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. |
| Dr Islam Sobhy | |
| Dr David Stanton | Palaeogenetics, ancient DNA, evolutionary genetics, conservation biology |
| Professor Bill Symondson | Community ecology, predator prey relationships, pest management. |
| Dr Ian Vaughan | Community and freshwater ecology |
| Professor Andy Weightman | Genetic adaptation of microbes to environmental challenges, sub-surface molecular microbiology, molecular systematics and metagenomics. |
| Dr Catrin Williams | Detection and treatment of pathogens; gut microbiome; bioelectromagnetics |
| Dr Fredric Windsor | Network ecology, freshwater ecosystems, environmental change |
The centre is a collaborative research and training facility based in Sabah, Malaysia.
