Dr. Peter Moonlight

Biography

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.