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Full Professor | Algarve Centre of Marine Sciences, Pew Marine FellowEster is a Pew Marine Fellow, and studies biogeography, evolutionary ecology, and conservation, with a special focus on marine forests of macroalgae, temperate corals, and seagrasses. With collaborators from all oceans, she studies evolutionary processes driving hotspots of rich and unique genetic variability of marine forests globally. She has a large experience in academic training and her global research on marine conservation and restoration is also applied to local challenges involving training citizens and stakeholders in practical actions for conservation of marine forests. She has published > 290 international peer-reviewed research papers.
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Presentation: Climate-driven shifting genetic hotspots and baselines in marine forests
Climate-driven range shifts that shape the geographical distribution of genetic diversity can drive different modes of speciation including divergence in allopatry or recombination at contact zones and allopolyploidy. Empirical evidence for these predictions in marine forests was discovered by analysing the geographical distribution of genetic variability and modelling species range shifts. This revealed high and unique genetic diversity in ancient populations at estimated long-term persistence zones, some of them presently located in shrinking climatic refugia. Hotspots of diversity and evolution have also resulted from diversity and reticulation within lineages and allopolyploid speciation with clearly discernable ancestry and geographical distribution at sympatric contact zones. Phylogroup distributions compared with habitat suitability over time further demonstrate a role of cycles of isolation in disjunct persistence areas intercalated with ephemeral expansions and admixture at high-latitude contact zones. Multi-glacial cycles thus acted as a speciation pump for marine organisms otherwise exhibiting cosmopolite amphiboreal distributions.
