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Dr. Peter Moonlight

Assistant Professor (Botany)
      
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Dr. Peter Moonlight

Assistant Professor (Botany)

 moonligp@tcd.ie

 


Peter is a botanist with a specialism in tropical plants and plant identification. Like many budding biologists, he suffered from "plant blindness" as a child but during his time at University came to appreciate the vast diversity of plants on our planet and the incalculable ways they influence everything that happens around us. Peter joined Trinity College Dublin as Assistant Professor in Botany and Assistant Herbarium Curator in November 2022. Peter began to specialise on the genus Begonia during his masters and continued to work on the genus during PhD. He now focusses on the taxonomy and systematics of Andean Begonia species and the adaption of several Andean Begonias to specialist pollination syndromes, including hummingbird and buzz pollination. His two major postdoctoral positions focussed on developing methods and building networks for monitoring Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests with permanent monitoring plots, which are fundamental to our understanding of how these underappreciated ecosystems react to and influence global climate. His experience in taxonomy and forest monitoring give him a unique perspective on how systematists and forest ecologists could work together to improve the quality and quantity of tropical tree identifications available to both fields. He is currently applying for funding to build a "next generation" pipeline for tree identification in the tropics.
Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
Portuguese Medium Medium Medium
Spanish Medium Medium Medium
Details Date From Date To
Fellow of the Linnean Society Present 2020
PW Moonlight, L Baldaszti, D Cardoso, A Elliott, T Särkinen, S Knapp, Twenty Years of Big Plant Genera, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291, 2024, p20240702 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Jay Delves, Joaquina Albán"Castillo, Asunción Cano, Carmen Fernández Aviles, Edeline Gagnon, Paúl Gonzáles, Sandra Knapp, Blanca León, Jose Luis Marcelo"Peña, Carlos Reynel, Rocío del Pilar Rojas Gonzáles, Eric F Rodríguez Rodríguez, Tiina Särkinen, Rodolfo Vásquez Martínez, Peter W Moonlight, Small and in"country herbaria are vital for accurate plant threat assessments: A case study from Peru, Plants, People, Planet, 6, (1), 2024, p174 - 185, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Mateus C. Silva, Lucy Rowland, Rafael S. Oliveira, R. Toby Pennington, Peter Moonlight, Elevation modulates the impacts of climate change on the Brazilian Cerrado flora, Diversity and Distributions, e13832, 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Peter W. Moonlight & Daniel L. Kelly, Two New Critically Endangered Species of Begonia sect. Gireoudia (Begoniaceae) from Mesoamerica, Novon, A Journal for Botanical Nomenclature, 32, 2024, p1 - 7, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Débora C Zuanny, Bruno Vilela, Peter W Moonlight, Tiina E Särkinen, Domingos Cardoso, expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data, Applications in Plant Sciences, 211609, 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
P.W. Moonlight, O.A. Jara-Muñoz, D.A. Purvis, J. Delves, J.P. Allen, C. Reynel, The Genus Begonia in peru, European Journal of Taxonomy, 881, 2023, p1 - 334, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
A.P. Courtenay, P.W. Moonlight, R.T. Pennington & C.E.R. Lehmann, Underground trees inhabit varied environmental extremes across the Afrotropics, Annals of Botany, mcad124, 2023, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Clark, J.L., Smith, J.F. & Moonlight, P.W., Another Recently Recognized Monotypic Genus Is No Longer Monotypic: A Second Species of Pachycaulos (Gesneriaceae) from the Huancabamba Depression in Northern Peru, Systematic Botany, 48, (3), 2023, p410 - 418, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Silva M.C., Moonlight P.W., Oliveira R.S., Pennington R.T., Rowland L., Toward diverse seed sourcing to upscale ecological restoration in the Brazilian Cerrado, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10, 2023, p1045591 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Silva T.H., Lima R.B.d., Souza R.L.F.d., Moonlight P.W., Cardoso D., Santos H.K.V., Oliveira C.P.d., Veenendaal E., Queiroz L.P.d., Rodrigues P.M.S., Santos R.M.d., Sarkinen T.E., Paula A.d., Barreto-Garcia P.A.B., Pennington R.T., Phillips O.L., Mapping wood volume in seasonally dry vegetation of Caatinga in Bahia State, Brazil, Scientia Agricola, 80, 2023, pe20220161 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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Carlos Augusto Reynel Rodriguez, Tiina Elina Särkinen, Richard Toby Pennington, Asunción Alipio Cano Echevarría, David Jones Nicholas Hind, Peter Moonlight, Joaquina Adelaida Albán Castillo, Moisés Cavero Bravo, Terence Dale Pennington, Flores en el itinerario de Lima a la Selva Central del Perú (Valle de Chanchamayo), 2023, Book, PUBLISHED
Hughes M., Moonlight P.W., Jara-Muñoz A., Tebbitt M.C., Wilson H.P., Zhong K. & Pullan M., Begonia Resource Centre, 2015 (Continuously Updated), Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, 2023, Notes: [This is a dynamic database, with weekly updates and no archived versions, hence we recommend users personally archive any data cited or used.], Dataset, PUBLISHED
World Flora Online, World Flora Online, December 2022, World Flora Online, 2022, Dataset, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Fellow of the Linnean Society 22 October 2020