Research Topics

Community ecology of seagrass dominated ecosystems

My research is focused on understanding the role of organisms in changing nutrient availability within their communities and how these interactions might affect community development and stability. I use manipulative experiments in nearshore marine habitats to examine how “resource providers” affect other members of their communities. Most of my work is with plant-animal interactions within seagrass ecosystems along the eastern coast of the U.S. However, our lab is very diverse encompassing topics from climate change to ecosystem restoration. In practice, our lab examines a continuum of questions ranging from single species interactions to ecosystem function, giving us a unique perspective on each of these problems. In all of our research, we use quantitative and manipulative experiments to bridge the gap between theory and field systems. We accomplish this through the development of mathematical models that incorporate empirical data as well as designing experiments and analysis that rigorously test theory.

Past projects have included looking at the role of sponges in Florida Bay to control phytoplankton blooms and increase light availability to the benthic plant community, the effect of marine protected areas on changing trophic transfer from nearby seagrass foraging grounds on both “no take” and unprotected reefs and how herbivorous fish create nutrient “hot spots” around patch reefs. Current projects in the lab focus on how different predators perceive the same level of habitat complexity, how ocean acidification is changing species interactions between seagrasses and the shellfish that recruit to them, how fish predator removal has impacted small crab shellfish foraging and the mutualism between sulfide oxidizing bivalves and seagrass.