Nerida Wilson
| Nerida Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Nerida Wilson holding a ruby seadragon | |
| Nationality | Australia |
| Fields | Invertebrate marine biology |
| Institutions | Western Australian Museum |
| Alma mater |
BSc University of Melbourne PhD University of Queensland |
| Notable awards | Antarctic Service Medal |
|
Website Wilson at the Western Australian Museum | |
Nerida Gaye Wilson is an invertebrate marine molecular biologist at the Western Australian Museum[1][2] who has interests in diversity, systematics, phylogeny, phylogeography and behavior. Wilson has been instrumental in demonstrating the level of marine cryptic species complexes in Antarctic waters, testing the circumpolar distribution paradigm with molecular data, and using interdisciplinary approaches to show how Antarctic diversity may have been generated. Her work with NOAA on Antarctic Marine Living Resources has been used to regulate exploratory benthic fisheries.[3]
Early life and education
Wilson grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne in Australia, attending Bayswater Primary School and Bayswater Secondary College. She completed a B.Sc. undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne in the Faculty of Science (1994-1998) followed by a one-year B.Sc. Honours research degree at University of Queensland (1999) in Zoology. She remained at University of Queensland but moved departments to the Centre for Marine Studies for her PhD (awarded 2004).[4]
Career and impact
Wilson began her career using histology to recover phylogenetically conserved characters, but then utilized molecular data to help understand the evolutionary history of organisms. Wilson spent almost a year as a Visiting Research Fellow at University of Adelaide and South Australian Museum before taking a postdoctoral position in the USA at Auburn University (Alabama) from 2005-2006. She then moved to Scripps Institution of Oceanography (San Diego California), first as a postdoc (2007-2009), and then as a project Scientist (2009-2010). Wilson returned to Australia in 2010 to take up a Research Scientist position in the Malacology Section at the Australian Museum (Sydney) and was promoted to Senior Research Scientist in 2012. She then moved to the Western Australian Museum in 2014 where she works across the Aquatic Zoology Department's Molecular Systematics Unit, and is an adjunct at University of Western Australia.
Wilson has participated in numerous deep sea and Antarctic expeditions, using traditional methods and Remotely Operated Vehicles to obtain samples. She dived in the submersible HOV Alvin in 2005, diving on unexplored vents on the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge (>2500m).[5] In 2010, she led the cruise that recovered large numbers of Monoplacophora for molecular and phylogenomic analysis. To date (2016), she has deployed to Antarctica six times, acting as Chief Scientist for two of those cruises.[6][7]
Wilson's has been an editor for Invertebrate Systematics journal and the Journal of Molluscan Studies (2012–present).[8][9] She is currently the President of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists.[10] She co-authored the proposal for the 2012-2020 SCAR Biology Scientific Research Programme "State of the Antarctic Ecosystem (AntECO)" to promote international interdisciplinary research relevant to Antarctic ecosystems.[11]
Wilson is committed to a fair, equitable scientific community and has run mentoring workshops (2013, 2015) in conjunction with SASB conferences. She co-founded the Women and Minorities in Science group at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (in 2009), and the Equal Opportunity Science- Australia Facebook group (in 2013).[12] She has also worked with Scripps Educational Alliances, the San Diego Project and the CREATE STEM success initiative using Antarctic data sets to create lesson plans to address the Next Generation Science Standards.[13]
Career highlights
- assessing controversial monoplacophoran affinities (2010)
- demonstrating the selective nature of light diffusion through the shell of a bioluminescent snail (2010) [14][15]
- helping produce the first comprehensive phylogenomic tree for Mollusca (2011)[16]
- correlating selection with speciation in a complex of cryptic Antarctic sea slugs (2013)[17]
- aiding discovery of the first known reversal of a dwarf male to a full size organism (2015)[18]
- identifying a new species the Ruby seadragon in Australian waters in 2015.[19]
- describing several new species of a deep-sea enigmatic phylum Xenoturbella (2016)[20]
Awards and honors
In 2014, Wilson was awarded an Antarctic Service Medal from the United States Antarctic Program. She has three species named after her; a hydrothermal vent polychaete Mesonerilla neridae,[21] a meiofaunal acochlidian slug Pontohedyle neridae,[22] and a myzostomid polychaete Endomyzostoma neridae.[23]
References
- ↑ "Nerida Wilson". Western Australian Museum. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ "Ruby Seadragon Makes its Debut as a New Species". Nature World News. 2015-02-18. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
- ↑ "Antarctic Ecosystem Research: the US AMLR Program - SWFSC". swfsc.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ "Nerida Wilson". Marine Biodiversity and Evolution. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
- ↑ "Human Occupied Vehicle Alvin". www.whoi.edu. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Retrieved 2016. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ "GeoScience data from NBP1105". Retrieved 2016-07-13.
- ↑ "GeoScience data from NBP1305". Retrieved 2016-07-13.
- ↑ "CSIRO PUBLISHING - Invertebrate Systematics". www.publish.csiro.au. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
- ↑ "Editorial Board". www.oxfordjournals.org. Journal of Molluscan Studies. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
- ↑ "Banksia" (PDF). www.sasb.org.au/. Society of Australian Systematic Biologists. August 2013. Retrieved 2016. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ "State of the Antarctic Ecosystem" (PDF). scar.org. Retrieved 2016. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ "Equal Opportunity Science-Australia". Retrieved 2016-07-13.
- ↑ "Doing a Deep Dive: Biology Teachers Explore Antarctic Invertebrates at SIO". UCSD. 2013-12-20. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ "Zoology: Snail shells spread light around". Nature. 468 (7327): 1004–1004. 2010-12-23. doi:10.1038/4681004a. ISSN 0028-0836.
- ↑ "Glowing Sea Snails". connection.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ "F1000 Prime recommendation". Retrieved 2016-07-13.
- ↑ Wilson, Nerida G.; Maschek, J. Alan; Baker, Bill J. (2013-11-26). "A Species Flock Driven by Predation? Secondary Metabolites Support Diversification of Slugs in Antarctica". PLoS ONE. 8 (11): e80277. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080277. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3841181
. PMID 24303002. - ↑ "Scitable Blog, For bone-eating worms, smaller is better". Retrieved 2016-07-13.
- ↑ "Meet Ruby, Australia's newly discovered seadragon". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ Frazer, Jennifer. "Crumpled Sock? Churro? No, That's Just Xenoturbella". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2016-05-31.
- ↑ Worsaae, Katrine; Rouse, Greg W (2009-01-01). "Mesonerilla neridae, n. sp. (Nerillidae): First meiofaunal annelid from deep-sea hydrothermal vents". Zoosymposia. ISSN 1178-9913.
- ↑ Jörger, Katharina M.; Schrödl, Michael (2013-01-01). "How to describe a cryptic species? Practical challenges of molecular taxonomy". Frontiers in Zoology. 10 (1): 59. doi:10.1186/1742-9994-10-59. ISSN 1742-9994. PMC 4015967. PMID 24073641.
- ↑ "Endomyzostoma neridae". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2016-05-31.