Dr Laetitia Gunton

Laetitia was previously the Chadwick Biodiversity Fellow at the Australian Museum. Dr Gunton has over six years of experience working with natural history collections including the Australian Museum, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton UK and Natural History Museum, London UK.

Laetitia's research uses the Australian Museum collections to understand species diversity, distribution and connectivity in the Australian deep-sea environment (200 to 5000 m depth) particularly within Australian Marine Parks.

Laetitia is very interested in deep-sea worms! Her areas of taxonomic expertise are the families Ampharetidae and Melinnidae within phylum Annelida. These worms are abundant and diverse in deep seafloor sediments. She uses both morphological and molecular methods to describe new species and to understand species’ geographic and depth distributions.

In Australia, the deep sea makes up more than 30% of marine territory (42.8 million km2), yet we know very little about the organisms living in this remote environment. Her research can be used as a baseline to monitor and protect these fascinating habitats.

Qualifications

Deep-sea Ecology Ph.D. National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton and the Natural History Museum London.
MSc. Oceanography University of Southampton.
MA Biological Sciences St. Hilda’s College, University of Oxford.