Robyn Cumming

Robyn Cumming of Museum of Tropical Queensland

Dr Robyn Cumming is a Collection Manager and Researcher at Queensland Museum, based at Queensland Museum Tropics.

She is a taxonomist and ecologist and is responsible for the management, preservation and databasing of museum collections of tropical marine invertebrates and vertebrates, including bryozoans (lace corals, sea mats, moss animals), crustaceans, echinoderms and marine mammals.

Robyn’s research targets contemporary issues in biodiversity science, with focus on Queensland Museum Tropics collections of the Phylum Bryozoa (approx. 25,000 specimens), in the fields of taxonomy, systematics, ecology and biogeography. 

Robyn’s research background is in coral reef ecology: population dynamics of reef-building corals and coral reef molluscs, and impacts of predation and bleaching on corals.

Projects

Current Projects

  • Ecology and taxonomy of coral reef and inter-reefal Bryozoa of the Great Barrier Reef.
  • Taxonomy and biogeography of Bryozoa of the Gulf of Carpentaria and across northern Australia.
  • Phylogeny and taxonomy of the Lanceoporidae (Bryozoa: Smittinoidea).

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