Dr. Peter Convey
British Antarctic Survey
Dr. Peter Convey is a terrestrial ecologist with over 27 years’ experience of working with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in a wide range of polar environments (17 Antarctic summers and one winter, multiple Arctic (Svalbard) field or teaching periods), including seasons on South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the mid-Atlantic islands. Pete is an ‘Individual Merit’ (IMP) senior research scientist (NERC Band 3) at BAS, and Deputy Leader of the core ‘Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation’ Team. He is very active in the development of national and international Antarctic science priorities and collaborative research programmes, in particular through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). He is currently Chair of the SCAR Development Council, and Deputy Co-Chair of the SCAR research programme ‘State of the Antarctic Ecosystem’.
Pete has broad and diverse research interests, with over 280 publications in these fields (current H Index 39, Web of Science), including:
- Biodiversity and biogeography of polar terrestrial invertebrates, plants and microbes
- Life history andecophysiological strategies of polar terrestrial biota
- Polarecosystems as models to identify the past and future global consequences of climate change
- Palaeobiogeographicalreconstruction of Antarctica and its relationships with other southern regions, using both traditional and molecular biological techniques
- Human impacts, conservation and management in Antarctica
Pete also has a strong record of University teaching and graduate supervision. He has been an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Birmingham since 2000, and is a Guest Lecturer at UNIS, Svalbard, and a Visiting Icon Professor at the National Antarctic Research Centre, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He has supervised eight (completed) PhD students and has 14 current PhD and Master’s students, and is a STEM Ambassador (educational and public outreach).
Key publications
Chown SL and Convey P (2016) Antarctic entomology. Annual Reviews of Entomology, 61: 119-137.
Pointing SB, Büdel B, Convey P, Gillman LN, Körner C, Leuzinger S, and Vincent WF (2015) Biogeography of photoautotrophs in the high polar biome. Frontiers in Plant Science, 6: 692. DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2015.00692
Convey P, Chown SL, Clarke A, Barnes DKA, Cummings V, Ducklow H, Frati F, Green TGA, Gordon S, Griffiths H, Howard-Williams C, Huiskes AHL, Laybourn-Parry J, Lyons B, McMinn A, Peck LS, Quesada A, Schiaparelli S, and Wall D (2014) The spatial structure of Antarctic biodiversity. Ecological Monographs, 84: 203-244. DOI: 10.1890/12-2216.1
Roads E, Longton RE, and Convey P (2014) Millennial timescale regeneration in a moss from Antarctica. Current Biology, 24: R222-R223. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.01.053
Convey P (2013) Antarctic Ecosystems. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Vol. 1, 2nd edition, ed. SA Levin. Elsevier, San Diego, pp. 179-188.