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Our research focuses on various ecological processes governing marine ecosystem structuring. Many of these processes touch on areas of symbiosis, food webs and trophodynamics, and conservation biology. Since key ecosystem engineers have a disproportionate influence on ecosystem structure, we focus on factors and processes that influence their performance. We use exploratory observations combined with careful, manipulative experiments to discover the patterns and uncover the mechanisms guiding these dynamics. Specifically, we try to understand factors that regulate the performance of marine ecosystem engineers and the resulting influence on ecosystem processes. Towards this goal, we focus on three main themes:
1. How are ecosystem engineers influenced by top-down (e.g. predator-prey) interactions?
2. Do microbial symbionts (e.g. bacteria, zooxanthellae) influence the success of key ecosystem engineers?
3. How widespread are symbioses in key ecosystem engineers, and how does engineer performance influence ecosystem structure?
SUMMARY OF ADDITIONAL RESEARCH INTERESTS:
- Trophodynamics and food webs in benthic marine ecosystems
- Fish-coral interactions on tropical reefs
- Evolution and ecology of marine symbioses in marine invertebrates
- Microbial ecology of coral reef, deep-sea hydrothermal vent, and rocky intertidal ecosystems
- Acoustic stress in Northwest Atlantic marine fishes
- Conservation ecology of tropical reef communities
- Hermit crab shell choice behavior