Contact details
Ms Narinratana (Nong) KongjandtreCentre for Marine Studies
The University of Queensland
Gehrmann Laboratories (#60)
St Lucia QLD 4072 Australia
(tel) +61 (0) 733653548
(fax) +61 (0) 733654755
(email) n.kongjandtre
uq.edu.auConnections
People > Narinratana (Nong) Kongjandtre
| Position: PhD Candidate Last update: 05-Jul-2010 | Supervisors: Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Dr Selina Ward, Dr Tyrone Ridgway, Dr Mauricio Rodriguez-Lanetty, Dr Lynette Cook |
| The taxonomy and systematics of the coral genus Favia in Thai waters Traditional taxonomy and more recently systematics is central to our understanding of the biodiversity of ecosystems such as coral reefs. This role has become more important as coral reefs worldwide have begun to be influenced by the activities of humans such that, despite their persistence in geological time, coral reefs have begun an unprecedented decline in abundance and community composition. Given the potential losses to coral reefs due to disturbance and climate change, the need for knowing what is being lost (i.e. via effective taxonomies) cannot be underestimated. Faviidae is one of the most prominent coral families inhabiting reefs, they are know to have wide depth and geographic ranges, as well as exhibiting a wide tolerant to an array of environmental conditions. Despite the prominence of this group, their taxonomy still remains largely unresolved. Thailand had been selected as a case study due to the variety of habitats, its position within the high biodiversity hot spot and for the comparison of Indian and Pacific Ocean species. In this respect each two study sites have been selected from 4 difference regions; the inner gulf of Thailand, the east coast, the west coasts and the Andaman Sea to represent the variation among regions. In this study we adopt a unique multi-disciplinary approach to Faviid taxonomy whereby ecological, morphological, and genetic techniques are integrated. For the morphological study multi-characters measurement and 3-D Cartesian coordinates methods were use to delineated the boundaries of coral skeletons. Analyses of the Ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacers (ITS) and the mtDNA aimed at detecting taxon boundaries were applied to coral samples from Thailand. In addition, the molecular diversity of symbiotic dinoflagellates associated with Favia species will explored.
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| Keywords: ecology, genetics, phylogenetics, taxonomy |
Education
MSc Biological Sciences - Burapha University (2004)BSc Aquatic Sciences - Burapha University (2000)