Qualifications
B.Sc. (Hons), Ph. D.
Location
Wellington
Science Centre
Contact Details
Biography
Vonda is a marine ecologist with interest in the structure and functioning of coastal seafloor communities and ecosystems and the environmental factors that influence them. Her research interest spans coasts, estuaries, oceans and fisheries. It is focused on understanding the pressures that Aotearoa New Zealand and Antarctic ecosystems experience today and will face in the future, the consequences and options for adaptation, rehabilitation and management.
Recently Featured Work
Marine heatwaves
Research Project
Temperatures around Aotearoa New Zealand are increasing, and not just on land. Amid a changing climate, significant marine heatwaves have impacted Aotearoa over the past decade and are expected to become more frequent and intense.
The life of an estuary
An estuary is a semi-enclosed embayment, with a free connection to the sea at one end and a freshwater supply at the other, and within which fresh and salty waters mix.
Assessing biodiversity on the Antarctic sea floor
Publication article
01 September 2003
PDF of this article (106 KB)
Vonda Cummings
Scientists are only now getting a good picture of the remarkable diversity of seafloor fauna below the sea ice of the Ross Sea.
Think of Antarctica, and you probably conjure up images of inhospitable vast white expanses of ice and snow, glaciers, mountain ranges and, apart from the penguins, very little obvious life. However, below the sea ice of the Ross Sea, the seafloor is teeming with a diverse and colourful array of fauna.
Vonda Cummings
Scientists are only now getting a good picture of the remarkable diversity of seafloor fauna below the sea ice of the Ross Sea.
Think of Antarctica, and you probably conjure up images of inhospitable vast white expanses of ice and snow, glaciers, mountain ranges and, apart from the penguins, very little obvious life. However, below the sea ice of the Ross Sea, the seafloor is teeming with a diverse and colourful array of fauna.