Person record of Geoff Boxshall

Information

Type
Person
Honorific prefix
Prof.
Firstname
Geoff
Surname
Boxshall
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8170-7734
Description @en
My main research focus is the systematics and biology of copepods, with special emphasis on parasitic and planktonic forms. I am interested in the adoption of parasitism which has happened in at least 10 separate lineages in copepods and they exploit almost every other phylum as hosts from Porifera to chordates. I find that WoRMS is enormously useful when I need to get up-to-date host nomenclature. I believe that there is robust evidence from host-specificity and from biogeography that allows us to look at the relative importance of co-evolutionary versus colonization events in determining host-parasite relationships. I am involved in the preparation of an interactive web-based key for the identification of sea lice (family Caligidae). These copepods are one of the major health problems for farmed fish worldwide. I am also interested in the colonization of marine and anchialine caves by crustaceans. These habitats seem to serve as refuges for basal representatives of numerous lineages and I have been studying the basal radiation of the Calanoida prior to their conquest of the open ocean pelagic zone.

I have been employed as a researcher at the Natural History Museum, London since 1974. I am also the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, and I currently serve as a Trustee on the Board of SAHFOS, the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science.

Institutes

Natural History Museum; Department of Zoology
role
Merit Researcher, Invertebrates Division
WoRMS Editorial Board
role
Taxonomic editor

Projects

Biodiversity and ecosystem function under changing climatic conditions - the Arctic as a model system
during period
Start date: 2005
End date: 2008
Bringing biogeographical data online
during period
Start date: 2005
End date: 2008
Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning - EU Network of Excellence
during period
Start date: 2004
End date: 2009

Expertise

taxonomic terms
Branchiura
Copepoda [copepods]
Mystacocarida
Tantulocarida [tantulocaridans]

Special collections

MarBEF contacts
Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning

Images

https://images.vliz.be/thumbs/119449_worms-steering-committee-meeting---innovocean-site-oostende-belgium-2016-06-16-front-row-from-left-to-right-tammy-horton-noc-nicole-boury-esnault-universit-d-aix-marseille-leen-vande.jpg
https://images.vliz.be/thumbs/119459_worms-lifewatch-world-register-of-marine-cave-species-editor-workshop-at-innovocean-site-oostende-belgium-2016-02-22-25-from-left-to-right-alejandro-mart-nez-garc-a-meg-ise-fernando-lvarez-n.png
https://images.vliz.be/thumbs/124843_from-left-to-right-shokoofeh-shamsi-geoff-boxshall-rod-bray-robert-adlard-david-gibson-haylee-weaver-stefanie-dekeyzer-janine-caira-sarah-perche-malin-strand-kerry-hadfield-alfonso-herrer.jpg

record metadata

date created: 2003-10-29
date modified: 2019-04-09