Donna J. Devlin, PhD
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Marine GEO Texas Advisory Board Member
Research Professor Department of Life Sciences Texas A&M University Corpus Christi donna.devlin@tamucc.edu 361-825-3935 |
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Donna Devlin is a Research Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Marine Research Station in Ft. Pierce, Florida. She and her laboratory, Coastal Ecology & Genetics Lab or CEGL (pronounced Sea-gull) is broadly interested in plant and animal assemblages in intertidal and shallow subtidal habitats. Her work focuses on dispersal and biodiversity in estuarine populations and communities with emphasis on the influence of biological interactions and physical factors, especially in relation to Climate Change.
The estuaries of South Texas are currently experiencing profound impacts due to climate change; thus, they provide an excellent model for these studies. The lab uses manipulative experiments, population genetics, and multivariate statistics to address both theoretical and applied questions. Recent and ongoing research concentrates on studies of population structure of the red mangrove throughout the Caribbean and Florida, the ecological consequences of increasing the population genotypic diversity of a foundation species (black mangrove in Texas and red mangrove in Florida), the effects fertilization on mangrove-marsh interactions, the impacts of a burrowing isopod on the survival of a restored mangrove forest, and the piracy of Crown Conch shells by a hermit crab. |
