Echinoderm taxonomy, ecology, and fisheries in Canada
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Marine Ecologist | Postdoctoral Fellow | Memorial University of Newfoundland
I am currently interested in documenting range extensions of deep-sea echinoderms, optimising sea cucumber harvesting and processing in Atlantic Canada, and evaluating the feasibility of a sea cucumber fishery in Nunavut.
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AboutI am a marine ecologist with interests in biodiversity and biogeography of marine invertebrates, structure and maintenance of benthic populations, and science-based management of biological invasions. I received my BSc degree from the University of British Columbia in 2008. There, I worked as a research assistant under the mentorship of Kai M. A. Chan (Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability) and M. L. Deng Palomares (Research Associate, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries). After graduation, I volunteered, interned, and worked at various NGOs prior to pursuing a master's degree.
During my MSc studies, I studied under the supervision of Don Deibel (Research Professor, Ocean Sciences Centre) and Cynthia H. McKenzie (Research Scientist, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre) and received my degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2012 (Ma 2012). My master's research was focused on the ecology and management of invasive ascidians, which included guidelines on best practices to eradicate invasive ascidians (Deibel et al. 2014), species richness and zoogeography of native and exotic ascidians (Ma et al 2011, Ma et al. 2017a), and population dynamics of an invasive ascidian in a subarctic harbour (Ma et al. 2017b). In 2012, I was part of a trans-institutional field sampling team—nominally based at Université du Québec à Rimouski—working under the supervision of Christopher W. McKindsey (Research Scientist, Institut Maurice-Lamontagne) and Claudio DiBacco (Research Scientist, Bedford Institute of Oceanography). Thereafter, I pursued a doctoral research program starting in 2013 under the supervision of Ladd E. Johnson (Professor, Université Laval) and Christopher W. McKindsey (Adjunct Professor, Institut des Sciences de la Mer de Rimouski) and, eventually, received my PhD degree from Université Laval in 2020 (Ma 2020). In brief, my doctoral research examined the effect of spatial and temporal scales on the detection of rare species and benthic recruitment dynamics (Ma et al. 2020a, Ma et al. 2022). This body of work has useful implications for management by providing a science-based framework to develop strategies to detect alien species as early as possible. In addition to assisting on field projects as part of the trans-institutional sampling team and my doctoral studies, I was also involved with the surveillance of marine invasive species in collaboration with international and national partners, which resulted in the discovery of many new records (Moore et al. 2014, Ma et al. 2016, Ma et al. 2018, Ma et al. 2019, Ma et al. 2020b) and in the understanding of large-scale biogeographical patterns of invasive ascidians (Carman et al. 2019). After my PhD studies, I took on a postdoctoral research fellowship to work with Christopher McQuaid (Distinguished Professor, Rhodes University) and Professor William Froneman (Professor, Rhodes University) at Rhodes University, where I have been investigating historical and contemporary range expansions in marine species (Ma et al. 2020c, Ma et al. 2020d, Ma et al. 2021a) and biogeographic drivers of distribution and abundance of intertidal invertebrates (e.g., barnacles, mussels, sea urchins) across different spatial scales in southern Africa (Ma et al. 2021b, Ma et al. 2021c). In 2022, I returned to Newfoundland and Labrador for a postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial University of Newfoundland to work with Annie Mercier (Professor, Department of Ocean Sciences) and industry partners. Here, I will be working on taxonomy, ecology, and fisheries of echinoderms in Atlantic Canada and the Canadian Arctic. Over the years, I have been involved in outreach activities and public engagements with stakeholders throughout the Canadian Maritimes and in the Canadian Arctic, which include giving seminars to audiences outside off academia. Also, I was a student member of the organizing committees of the 44th Benthic Ecology Meeting (BEM 2015) and the 4th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity (WCMB 2018). Presently, I serve as an Associate Editor for the editorial boards of Aquatic Invasions (AI), BioInvasions Records (BIR), and Management of Biological Invasions (MBI).             |
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Dr. Kevin C. K. Ma
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rhodes University (2019 – present)
PhD in Oceanography, Université Laval (2020) MSc in Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland (2012) BSc in Ecology and Environmental Biology, University of British Columbia (2008) k.ma@ru.ac.za
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