Robert Streit

Post Doc | Reef Function Hub Communications Manager

Already as a child Bert enjoyed poking around in reef flat rock pools while growing up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in Kenya. After finishing school and his undergraduate studies in biology in Munich, Germany, that early interest for reefs and the tropics washed back to the surface and lead him to study his Master’s degree (and eventually PhD) at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

He completed his postgraduate research on browsing herbivorous fishes in the Bellwood Reef Fish Lab in 2014. After a break making coffees, he started his PhD in 2016, supervised by David Bellwood and Graeme Cumming. In his PhD, Bert focused on movement and space use in reef fishes - basically trying to understand how fishes move around their home and how this influences ecological functions and reef resilience.

Now Bert works as a postdoctoral researcher and communications manager in the Reef Function Hub.
In his research he now studies “functional traits” as a research tool and continues to work on spatial questions in reef ecology: what are functional ranges of fishes, how can we map ecologically critical behaviour and how can we use new technology like 3D photogrammetry for ecological questions?

Bert’s recent publications