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Areas of study: Island Biogeography. Integrative Biogeography and Evolution. Conservation Genetics and Wildlife Management. To determine the level and influence of Pleistocene gene flow between North Africa and Europe, concentrating on the Iberian Peninsula but also examining the possibility of gene flow between Northeast Africa and Southern Italy in several invertebrate and vertebrate organisms with varying colonizing abilities. To adopt an interdisciplinary concerted approach, to explore the spatial distribution of intraspecific biodiversity in selected species of bony fish and sharks sampled from the continental slopes and from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Concerted collection of genetic, phenotypic and oceanographic data will help us unravelling the processes responsible for shaping the patterns of population connectivity in the deep-sea. The objective is to identify stocks that will react independently to exploitation, and so provide a platform for evidence-based management strategies, and evaluate the potential for biodiversity loss caused by deep-sea fisheries and other anthropogenic pressures. To use both mitochondrial and nuclear markers as well as standard phylogeographic, historical demographic tools to compare the patterns detected in retreating edges and leading edges of cold temperate and warm water organisms respectively in coastal European waters.

Ongoing Externally funded Research Projects:

MarinEra - Marine phylogeographic structuring during climate change: the signature of leading and rear edge of range shifting populations

HERCULES - Gene flow of organisms across the pillars of Hercules: the role of North Africa in the postglacial recolonization of Europe.