Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a novel, non-invasive method for monitoring and assessing biodiversity. It involves extracting DNA from samples taken from the environment via water, sediment, or air, amplifying it using general or universal primers in a polymerase chain reaction, and sequencing it using high-throughput sequencing to...
As a wildlife forensic scientist, I use DNA techniques to bridge the gap between conservation genetics, fisheries management and law enforcement, by providing efficient methods for species-level identification of sharks.
Where it all began. My formal debut into the field (and research!) was in 2012 when I worked on applied population genetics in the aquaculture of abalone for my B.Sc. Honours project. The aim is to integrate genomic tools and breeding technologies into the breeding program of aquaculture species, to enhance the productivity of the aquaculture...
Non-indigenous species (NIS) are having enormous detrimental effects on ecosystems, commerce, agriculture, and human health. I am primarily interested in marine invasions with the goal to understand the genetic mechanisms behind success or failure during the establishment of a species in its non-native habitat, and how genomics can contribute to...
In collaboration with fellow scientists, I work on the molecular ecology of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species. The focus of this research is to understand how (meta-)populations are structured in nature and unravel the underlying evolutionary and/or ecological processes, and environmental variables governing population genetic structure....
This part of my research involves the development of innovative cost-effective methods for discovering and genotyping molecular makers and producing a molecular genetic toolkit for individual or a combination of species. I primarily work with nuclear single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and short tandem repeats (STRs or microsatellites), and...
I employ various next-generation sequence platform to generate whole genome sequence data for the assembly of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes.
