Lova Marline is a tropical ecologist, especially of taxonomy and ecology of tropical

bryophytes The Bryophyta s.l. are a proposed taxonomic division containing three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. Bryophyta s.s. consists of the mosses only. They are characteristically limited i ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. She compiled the first check-list of bryophytes in Madagasgar.

Early life and education

Lova Marline (also known as Lovanomenjanahary Marline) was born in Madagascar. She studied at

University of Antananarivo University of Antananarivo (french: Université d'Antananarivo) is the primary public university of Madagascar, located in the capital Antananarivo. History The university traces its founding to 16 December 1955 and the formation of the Instit ...

for her B.Sc. and master's degrees, specialising in botany and ecology. In 2018 she completed her doctorate at

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

on the bryophytes of Madagascar.

Career

In 2014 she was a Green Talent awardee of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Following short post-doctoral fellowships in South Africa and Germany, Marline joined the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre at

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

. She compiled the first check-list of the bryophytes of Madagascar that is now being used to test for changes in their diversity or distribution and for planning conservation. She is involved in an international collaboration to monitor and manage air pollution in Madagascar. As part of this she is attached to Association Vahatra in

Antananarivo Antananarivo ( French: ''Tananarive'', ), also known by its colonial shorthand form Tana, is the capital and largest city of Madagascar. The administrative area of the city, known as Antananarivo-Renivohitra ("Antananarivo-Mother Hill" or "An ...

, the capital of Madagascar while based at the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre on Madagascar.

Publications

Her scientific publications include: Alexandre Antonelli et al. (74 authors) 2022
Madagascar’s extraordinary biodiversity: Evolution, distribution, and use.
''Science'' 378, eabf0869 Marline L., Ah-Peng C. & Hedderson T. 2020
Bryophyte diversity and range distributions along an elevational gradient in Marojejy, Madagascar.
''Biotropica'' 00: 1–12. Ah-Peng C., Flores O., Wilding N., Bardat J., Marline L., Hedderson T. & Strasberg D. 2014
Functional diversity of subalpine bryophyte communities in an oceanic island (La Réunion).
''Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research'' 46(4):841-851. Lovanomenjanahary Marline, Roger Lala Andriamiarisoa, Jacques Bardat, Min Chuah-Petiot, Terry A.J. Hedderson, Catherine Reeb, Dominique Strasberg, Nicholas Wilding, Claudine Ah-Peng. 2012. Checklist of the Bryophytes of Madagascar ''Cryptogamie, Bryologie'' 33(3), 199-255

Honours and awards

In 2023 Marline was awarded the Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer research grant for early-career scientists working on to African challenges.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marline, Lova Living people Ecologists Malagasy scientists Botanists active in Kew Gardens Botanists active in Africa 21st-century botanists Bryologists Year of birth missing (living people)