Nia Walker
Department
Areas of Expertise
Biography
I am a molecular ecologist--this means I use genomics, genetics, and physiological techniques to address how organisms navigate their environment. My research is focused on better understanding how organisms function under normal and high stress environmental conditions. A major goal of my research is to illuminate not just the capabilities of the stress response and resilience, but to also discover how important life processes are impacted by an organism’s urgent need to invest in processes related to stress resilience. Most of my work has focused on reef-building corals, and she has studied reefs around the world, including Hawaiʻi, Palau, and the Caribbean. Learn more on the website here: https://www.walker-rise-lab.com
Education
A.B. Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Ph.D. Biology, Stanford University
Research and Publications
Armstrong, KC, Lippert, M, Hanson, E, Nestor, V, Cornwell, B, Walker, NS,... & Palumbi, SR (2024). Fine-Scale Geographic Variation of Cladocopium in Acropora hyacinthus Across the Palauan Archipelago. Ecology and Evolution, 14(12), e70650. https://doi/10.1002/ece3.70650
Walker, N. S., Isma, L., García, N., True, A., Walker, T., & Watkins, J. (2024). The Young and the Resilient: Investigating coral thermal resilience in early life stages. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 64(4), 1141-1153. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icae122
Johnston, E. C., Caruso, C., Mujica, E., Walker, N. S., & Drury, C. (2024). Complex parental effects impact variation in larval thermal tolerance in a vertically transmitting coral. Heredity, 132(6), 275-283. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-024-00681-6
Abdel-Raheem, S. T., Payne, A. R., Rivera, M. G., Sturdivant, S. K., Walker, N. S., Márquez, M. C., ... & Beltran, R. S. (2023). OCEANOGRAPHY’S DIVERSITY DEFICIT. Oceanography, 36(4), 44-50.
Gordon DM, Steiner, E, Biplabendu D, and Walker NS (2023) Relative intraspecific ant colony foraging rates show predictability across a long-term dataset (2016-2021) and are highly dependent on seasonal humidity patterns. Royal Society Open Science 10(9):230726. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230726
Palumbi, SR, Walker, NS, Hanson, E, Armstrong, K, Lippert, M, Cornwell, B, Nestor, V, and Golbuu, Y (2023) Small scale genetic structure of coral populations in Palau based on whole mitochondrial genomes: implications for assisted gene flow. Evolutionary Applications 16(2):518-529. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13509
Walker NS, Nestor, V, Golbuu, Y, and Palumbi, SR. (2022) Coral bleaching resistance variation is linked to differential mortality and skeletal growth during recovery. Evolutionary Applications 16(2):504-517. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13500
Walker NS, Cornwell BH, Nestor V, Armstrong KC, Golbuu Y, and Palumbi SR. (2022) Persistence of phenotypic responses to short-term heat stress in the tabletop coral Acropora hyacinthus. PLoS ONE 17(9): e0269206. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269206
Boyd A, Walker NS, Valdez SR, Zhang, YS, Altieri AH, Crain, C, and Silliman B (2022) Invertebrate grazing on live turtlegrass (Thalasisa testudinum): a common but overlooked interaction that can facilitate fungal infection. Frontiers in Marine Science 8:1949. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.789380
Cornwell BH, Armstrong KC, Walker NS, Lampert M, Golbuu Y, Nestor V, and Palumbi SR (2021) Heat tolerance and symbiont load are associated with growth tradeoffs in the coral Acropora hyacinthus across Palau. eLife 10:e64790. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64790
Walker NS, Fernandez RM, Paul V, Sneed J, Giribet G, and Combosch D (2019) Differential Gene Expression during Substrate Probing in Larvae of the Caribbean Coral Porites astreoides. Molecular Ecology 28(22):4899-4913. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15265