Gustav Paulay

Ph.D. University of Washington, 1988
Associate Curator of Marine Malacology
Adjunct Associate Professor of Zoology

278 Dickinson Hall
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida
Gainesville FL
32611-7800
Voice: (352) 392-1721 x476
Fax: (352) 846-0287
paulay@flmnh.ufl.edu

Research Interest

Biogeography, evolution, systematics, and natural history of invertebrates. Marine biodiversity and biogeography, especially of tropics and coral reefs. Dynamics of species diversity and distributions; marine speciation. Large-scale marine biodiversity surveys. Island biology; marine and terrestrial biota of Pacific islands.

Students Currently Supervised

Machel Malay (Ph.D)

François Michonneau (PhD)
François's Research Page

I'm broadly interested in the creation and maintenance of marine invertebrate biodiversity (systematics, speciation, biogeography and community ecology). I've started my PhD in August 2006 as a trainee of the PEET project "Sea cucumbers on coral reefs: systematics of aspidochirotid holothurians". This project aims to revise the order Aspidochirotida thanks to a collaborative effort by using morphological and molecular systematics.

John Starmer (Ph.D)
I am interested in undertstanding how modern and historical processes interact to create and limit biodiversity at local and regional scales. I am studying aspidochirote sea cucumber phylogenetics (Synallactidae, Holothuriidae, Stichopodidae)with a focus on the stichopodids. I hope to determine if habitat specificity influenced the group's ability to diversify in shallow water tropical versus shallow-temperate and deep water environments.

Jada White (PhD, cosponsored with Ben Bolker)
I seek to understand the direct and indirect effects of a marine ecosystem engineer, Stegastes nigricans, on the dynamics of a coral reef community. These farmerfish change the benthic environment through a suite of behaviors, including algal turf farming and territorial defense. The scale of these changes depends on S. nigricans density as well as community characteristics. As a result, our quantitative understanding of the system requires an integrative approach that combines many facets of ecology (e.g., behavior/ field observations, manipulative experiments, and theoretical modeling).

Representative Publications

Fukami, H.; Budd, A. F.; Paulay, G.; Solé-Cava, A.; Iwao, K.; Knowlton, N. 2004. Conventional taxonomy obscures deep evolutionary divergence between Pacific and Atlantic corals. Nature 427: 832-835.

Paulay, G. (ed.) 2003. The marine biodiversity of Guam and the Marianas. Micronesica 35-36: 1-682.

Paulay, G., Meyer, C. 2002 Diversification in the tropical Pacific: comparisons between marine and terrestrial systems and the importance of founder speciation. Integrative & Comparative Biology 42: 922-934

Paulay, G.; Kirkendale, L. ; Lambert, G.; Meyer, C. 2002. Anthropogenic biotic interchange in a coral reef ecosystem: a case study from Guam. Pacific Science 56: 403-422

Paulay, G. 1997. Diversity and distribution of reef organisms. In: Birkeland, C. (ed.). Life and death of coral reefs. Chapman & Hall, NY, pp. 298-353