Doctoral Students

Lisa Nupen BSc (Hons), MSc (Cape Town) John Day Building: 2.15 Tel: +27 (0)21 650 3619 Fax: +27 (0)21 650 3295 Email: lisa.nupen@uct.ac.za

Lisa’s broad interest in conservation developed early on, growing up in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, before moving to South Africa. She finds the natural world endlessly fascinating and loves being outdoors. Lisa obtained her BSc (Honours) in Zoology at UCT in 2005, before enrolling in the Conservation Biology Masters’ programme offered by the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, which she completed in 2007.

During her studies, Lisa has worked on research projects investigating small mammal taxonomy, avian taxonomy, Nile crocodile population genetics and the floral and faunal rehabilitation of mining areas in the Western Cape. Her MSc thesis focussed on the systematics of five species of southern African cisticolas based on morphological, molecular and behavioural evidence. She has also been involved in climate change research working at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and marine research at Marine and Coastal Management (MCM, DEAT).

Lisa’s PhD is an investigation into the breeding behaviour, movement patterns and population genetic structuring in various threatened southern African seabird species and is supervised by Assoc. Prof. Peter Ryan (UCT, Fitztitute), Dr. Rauri Bowie (UCLA, Berekey) and Dr. Jacqui Bishop (UCT, Zoology). The project will involve quantifying levels of gene flow between breeding populations of African Penguins (Spheniscus demersus), Cape Gannets (Morus capensis) and a number of Cormorant species around the southern African coast. She will also be using molecular techniques to investigate similar questions for Penguin and Shag species breeding on selected sub Antarctic Islands. This research combines her strong interests in molecular biology and conservation biology with her enjoyment of fieldwork and being outdoors, as well as her love for marine ecosystems.

Thesis

Comparative Conservation Genetics and Evolutionary History of threatened, endemic southern African Seabirds in the Benguela Current Upwelling Ecosystem: Range-wide phylogeography, gene flow and population genetics based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (Supervisors: Peter Ryan, Rauri Bowie (UCLA, Berkeley) and Jacqui Bishop (UCT, Zoology)).

Related Research Programmes

Recent peer-reviewed publications

Ryan, P.G., Nupen, L., Rose, B. & Suleiman, A.S. 2010. Geographic variation in Socotra Sparrows Passer insularis. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 130:75-82.