Melissa Roth

Marine Biodiversity: Understanding Threats & Providing Solutions IGERT
University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography


Some 17 years after deciding I wanted to be marine biologist, I have finally started a PhD program in marine biology (ok, so I was only seven at the time). I am interested in areas of high biodiversity and species interactions with respect to degradation and global climate change. Before joining team IGERT, I did my thesis on a predator-prey interaction in the temperate rocky intertidal with George Somero and Eric Sanford at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University. Then I wandered over to the tropical Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to work on restoration ecology and biological monitoring with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and endangered species conservation with the US Geological Survey. After Hawaii, I island hopped the Galapagos to study behavioral ecology on the Espanola Mockingbirds. At SIO, I am working with Nancy Knowlton, Jeremy Jackson and Enric Sala on understanding degradation and health of coral reef ecosystems. I am interested in big picture reef ecology and am currently working on SIO's Palmyra project to understand what a healthy reef is and how species interact.

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