Anne Treasure

Research Associate

My research interests are broad and interdisciplinary and include the responses of species, communities and ecosystems to environmental change in aquatic and terrestrial habitats, interactions across habitat boundaries, and the connection of physical and biological data. My early work at the Prince Edward Islands looked at plankton trophic ecology. My PhD focused on terrestrial invasive species and climate change impacts on the islands. My findings from this work and my experience in both the marine and terrestrial habitats led me to question the possibility of predicting impacts on a larger ecosystem scale, particularly in a system where land-sea interactions are so important. I explored these questions in a postdoc in the Department of Oceanography at UCT where I used ecosystem models to investigate marine food web responses to variability in resource subsidies that cross the land-sea habitat boundary, and ecosystem effects of latitudinal variability of the sub-Antarctic front. The collection of physical oceanography data is often hampered by various limitations. Marine mammals are therefore an excellent platform to collect data, particularly in regions where other profilers such as Argo floats cannot go. Through these interests, I became involved with MEOP (Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole) in postdoctoral research co-hosted by MIMMP and UCT, where I investigated CTD data collected by elephant seals. This enhanced an interest in large data and repositories and the need for open data, data sharing and good data management. 

I currently work in the Information Systems node (uLwazi) of the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) as a Data Curator, where my main focus is assisting with the development and management of the Marine Information Management System (MIMS) for the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries. I serve on the South African National Committee for SCAR (Scientific Commission on Antarctic Research) as a representative for the Life Sciences, as well as for Data Management. I also represent South Africa on SCAR's Standing Committee on Antarctic Data Management (SCADM), and am Node and Data Manager for AfrOBIS (the sub-Saharan node of OBIS - the Ocean Biodiversity Information System).

My publications can be viewed on ResearchGate and ORCID.

Email: anne.m.treasure@gmail.com