Nia Walker

Postdoctoral Researcher

My Research

I am a molecular ecologist interested in better understanding how organisms function under normal and high stress conditions. I primarily conduct research of reef-building coral stress resilience. I use genomics, genetics, ecological, and physiological techniques to investigate coral stress resilience. In particular, I aim to break down stress resilience into relative components (e.g., resistance vs. recovery ability) and under different timescales (e.g., short term vs. long term, seasonal variation, and across life stages) and conditions (e.g., types of stress and environmental gradients).

Education and Experience

Postdoc - University of Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, current

Ph.D. - Stanford University, 2017-2022

B.A. - Harvard University, 2012-2016                                        

Publications

Walker NS, Cornwell BH, Nestor V, Armstrong KC, Golbuu Y, Palumbi SR. In review. Persistence of phenotypic responses to short-term heat stress in the tabletop coral Acropora hyacinthus.

Earlier version can be found on BioRxiv here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.18.492444

Walker NS, Nestor V, Golbuu Y, Palumbi SR. In review. Coral bleaching resistance variation is linked to differential mortality and skeletal growth during recovery.

Palumbi SR, Walker NS, Hanson E, Armstrong K, Lippert M, Cornwell B, Nestor V, Golbuu Y. In review. Small scale genetic structure of coral populations in Palau based on whole mitochondrial genomes: implications for future coral resilience.

Boyd AD, Walker NS, Valdez SR, Zhang YS, Altieri AH, Gulis V, Crain C, Silliman B. 2022. Invertebrate grazing on live turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum): A common interaction that may facilitate fungal growth.Front. Mar. Sci. 8:789380. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.789380

Cornwell BH, Armstrong K, Walker NS, Lippert M, Nestor V, Golbuu Y, Palumbi SR. 2021. Widespread variation in heat tolerance and symbiont load are associated with growth tradeoffs in the coral Acropora hyacinthus in Palau. eLife 10:e64790. doi: 10.7554/eLife.64790

Walker NS, Fernandez R, Sneed JM, Paul VJ, Giribet G, Combosch DJ. 2019. Differential gene expression during substrate probing in larvae of the Caribbean coral Porites astreoides. Mol Ecol 28(22):4899-4913. doi: 10.111/mec.15265

Updated August 2022