Overview
Our work examines how globally relevant factors have cascading effects on the biodiversity and emergent properties of coastal ecosystems. We examine anthropogenic impacts and natural environmental gradients in a variety of habitats to better understand the dynamics of ecosystem properties including resilience, productivity, and output of ecosystem services. We employ an interdisciplinary combination of manipulative field experiments, large-scale observations, historical reconstruction, ecophysiology, and molecular techniques that integrates across perspectives from the organism to ecosystem. In tropical ecosystems we conduct our research in coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and rocky shores, and in temperate systems we work in cobble beaches,bivalve reefs, marshes, and mud. Our hypothesis-driven research advances ecological theory, informs conservation efforts, and drives implementation of coastal resilience projects. Much of our current research on biodiversity, community interactions, and ecosystem properties falls into one or more of the following themes: consumer control of habitat and community structure, global change factors including ocean deoxygenation, ecosystem engineering by foundation species, indirect positive interactions through facilitation cascades, and implementation of nature-based solutions.
Our work examines how globally relevant factors have cascading effects on the biodiversity and emergent properties of coastal ecosystems. We examine anthropogenic impacts and natural environmental gradients in a variety of habitats to better understand the dynamics of ecosystem properties including resilience, productivity, and output of ecosystem services. We employ an interdisciplinary combination of manipulative field experiments, large-scale observations, historical reconstruction, ecophysiology, and molecular techniques that integrates across perspectives from the organism to ecosystem. In tropical ecosystems we conduct our research in coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and rocky shores, and in temperate systems we work in cobble beaches,bivalve reefs, marshes, and mud. Our hypothesis-driven research advances ecological theory, informs conservation efforts, and drives implementation of coastal resilience projects. Much of our current research on biodiversity, community interactions, and ecosystem properties falls into one or more of the following themes: consumer control of habitat and community structure, global change factors including ocean deoxygenation, ecosystem engineering by foundation species, indirect positive interactions through facilitation cascades, and implementation of nature-based solutions.
