David is New Zealander who recently returned home to take up a lecturer in marine ecology position at Massey University in Albany after living and studying overseas. David continues to collaborate on international projects, but his main research aims to better our understanding of the forces governing the distribution of marine organisms surrounding our island nation.

During this voyage David will be surveying the coral communities of the Kermadec archipelago. The Kermadec archipelago sits at the southern margins of where tropical reef-building corals occur. These communities were sampled some 20 years ago and David is particularly interested to see if there have been changes in the abundance and distribution of these corals. Given the peripheral location of the Kermadec’s coral communities they will represent the leading edge of any potential range expansion in response to climate change.