Dr. Karen Filbee-Dexter
ARC Future Fellow
Karen Filbee-Dexter is a marine ecologist, global leader in kelp forest research holding a Future Fellowship and Senior Lecturer position at the University of Western Australia. She is one of the principal investigators in the Wernberg & Filbee-Dexter Lab, where she leads research on the ecology, resilience, restoration, and blue carbon potential of temperate reef ecosystems.
Her work focuses on understanding how climate change, particularly ocean warming and marine heatwaves, drives large-scale shifts in kelp forest ecosystems. Her research has documented dramatic kelp forest declines and regime shifts in multiple regions worldwide, including Australia, Canada, and the North Atlantic, and has helped shape global understanding of how warming oceans transform coastal ecosystems.
A key component of her research explores the role of kelp forests in coastal carbon cycles. She investigates…
Qualifications
2016: PhD Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Achievements and awards
2023: Funding: ARC Future Fellowship (FT23)
2023: Funding: Schmidt Marine Technology Partners.
2022: Funding: ARC Linkage Project (LP22).
2022: Funding: Canopy Blue.
2021: Funding: ARC Discovery Project (DP22).
2020: Funding: Schmidt Marine Technology Partners.
2019: Funding: ARC Linkage Project (LP19).
2019: Funding: ARC Discovery Project (DP19).
2019: Funding: ARC DECRA Fellowship (DE19).
2018: Funding: NSERC Fellowship, Canada.
Publications
Full list of publication can be found: google scholar
Filbee-Dexter K, Pessarrodona A, Duarte CM, Krause-Jensen D, Hancke K, Smale DA, Wernberg T (2023) Seaweed forests are carbon sinks that may help mitigate CO2 emissions. A comment on Gallagher et al. (2022). ICES Journal of Marine Science, in press 15/11/22.
Filbee-Dexter K, Feehan CJ, Smale DA, Krumhans KA, Augustine S, de Bettignies F, Burrows MT, Byrnes JEK, Campbell J, Davoult D, Dunton KH, Franco JN, Garrido I, Grace SP, Hancke K, Johnson LE, Konar B, Moore PJ, Norderhaug KM, O’Dell A, Pedersen MF, Salomon AK, Sousa-Pinto I, Tiegs S, Yiu D, Wernberg T (2022) Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposition. PLoS Biology, accepted 8 June 2022.
Filbee-Dexter K*, Wernberg T*, Barreiro R, Coleman MA, de Bettignies T, Feehan CJ, Franco JN, Hasler B, Louro I, Norderhaug KM, Staehr PAU, Tuya F, Verbeek J (2022) Leveraging the blue economy to transform marine forest restoration. Journal of Phycology, accepted 29/12/21. * Shared lead authorship.
Filbee-Dexter K, Wernberg T, Grace SP, Thormar J, Fredriksen S, Narvaez CN, Feehan CJ, Norderhaug KM (2020) Marine heatwaves and the collapse of marginal North Atlantic kelp forests. Scientific reports 10, 1-11.
Filbee-Dexter K, Wernberg T (2020) Substantial blue carbon in overlooked Australian kelp forests. Scientific Reports 10, 1-6.
Filbee-Dexter K (2020) Ocean forests hold unique solutions to our current environmental crisis. One Earth 2, 398-401
Filbee-Dexter K, Pedersen MP, Fredriksen S, Norderhaug KM, Rinde E, Kristiansen T, Albretsen J, Wernberg T (2020) Carbon export is facilitated by sea urchins transforming kelp detritus. Oecologia 192, 213-225.
Filbee-Dexter K, Smajdor A (2019) Ethics of assisted evolution in marine conservation. Frontiers in Marine Science 6, 20.
Filbee-Dexter K, Wernberg T, Fredriksen S, Norderhaug KM, Pedersen MP (2019) Arctic kelp forests: Diversity, resilience and future. Global and Planetary Change 172, 1-14.
Filbee‐Dexter K, Symons CC, Jones K, Haig HA, Pittman J, Alexander SM, Burke MJ (2018) Quantifying ecological and social drivers of ecological surprise. Journal of Applied Ecology 55, 2135-2146.
Filbee-Dexter K, Wernberg T, Norderhaug KM, Ramirez-Llodra E, Pedersen MF (2018) Movement of pulsed resource subsidies from kelp forests to deep fjords. Oecologia 187, 291-304.
Filbee-Dexter K, Wernberg T (2018) Rise of turfs: a new battlefront for globally declining kelp forests. Bioscience 68, 64-76.
Filbee-Dexter K, Scheibling RE (2017) The present is the key to the past: linking regime shifts in kelp beds to the distribution of deep‐living sea urchins. Ecology 98, 253-264.
Filbee-Dexter K, Feehan CJ, Scheibling RE (2016) Large-scale degradation of a kelp ecosystem in an ocean warming hotspot. Marine Ecology Progress Series 543, 141-152.
Filbee-Dexter K, Scheibling RE (2014) Sea urchin barrens as alternative stable states of collapsed kelp ecosystems. Marine Ecology Progress Series 495, 1-25.
Filbee-Dexter K, Scheibling RE (2012) Hurricane-mediated defoliation of kelp beds and pulsed delivery of kelp detritus to offshore sedimentary habitats. Marine Ecology Progress Series 455, 51-64.