Nokubonga Mbanzi

Position: PDP Postdoctoral Research Fellow: South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity

Dr Nokubonga Mbanzi’s research interests and passion lie along the lines of understanding how aquatic organisms interact with their environments and to understand ecosystem functioning by using sustainable approaches such as using bioindicator organisms from the coast to address some ecological and societal challenges. As people have a close connection with the coast, understanding the role of the organisms in these areas as ecosystem providers is of great importance. Dr Mbanzi is currently part of a multidisciplinary research project called the Indigenous Marine Innovations for Sustainable Environments and Economies (IMIsEE Project), one of the aims of which is to improve the value of the coastal habitat to benefit both ecosystem biodiversity and community members. Given that intertidal organisms can bioaccumulate metals in their tissues, the main focus of this project is to use selected commercially or edible invertebrate species as bioindicators and to assess their potential bioremediation ability of metals to improve the quality of the coastal urban environment. The findings from this research study will be necessary to develop appropriate strategies for contaminant monitoring in coastal environments, and to determine the health status of urban coastal sites.

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