Science AMA Series: I'm Dr Nerida Wilson, Senior Research Scientist at the Museum of Western Australia. I’m a marine molecular biologist – I work on the biodiversity of aquatic taxa from nudibranchs to sea dragons, discovering new species as I go. I’m here to today to talk about it.

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Hi everyone, I’m Nerida Wilson Senior Research Scientist at the Museum of Western Australia and Adjunct Research Fellow, University of Western Australia. I work in phylogenetics, biodiversity and systematics.

I’ve been working in taxonomy and classification for around 16 years and I’ve been involved with naming 18 new species, from sea dragons to nudibranchs. I do lots of voyages, expeditions and diving to collect new specimens, but my everyday reality is LOTS of office and lab work.

Most recently I’ve been working towards untangling the systematics of the nudibranch genus Moridilla, which has led to the discovery of a new species. This has been the focus of a competitive naming competition opened up to the public Australia. Talking about as yet unpublished research in long-form radio, and having thousands of people have their say on it has been novel, and I’m happy to answer questions about the experience.

I’ve also just been involved with publishing a paper in Scientific Reports showing that the sister group of nudibranchs+pleurobranchs is the shelled group Ringiculida. We are still making leaps in understanding how sluggy heterobranch groups are related to each other. It's really exciting!

I’m happy to discuss marine taxonomy, scientific collection expeditions and my experience so far in opening up my work to run a public competition as a form of outreach. My colleague - Dr Amber Beavis, who is the project coordinator for the 'Name this Creature' competition - is helping me type the answers.

I will be back at 9 am Western Australia (7 pm ET) to answer your questions, ask me anything!

">Science AMA Series: I'm Dr Nerida Wilson, Senior Research Scientist at the Museum of Western Australia. I’m a marine molecular biologist – I work on the biodiversity of aquatic taxa from nudibranchs to sea dragons, discovering new species as I go. I’m here to today to talk about it.