My research interests are in the interactions among marine organisms and their environment. Especially in the present time of ever increasing human impacts on Earth and our oceans, understanding how ecosystems respond to changes in the physical setting hold many significant questions. In the SSU Coastal Oceanography Lab, we are studying the dynamics of the coastal environment on marine organisms. We are fortunate to be located on a productive saltmarsh ecosystem that is a wonderful opportunity to explore the interactions among the highly dynamic physics of the coastal ocean and fish, marine mammals, and plankton groups that live or migrate through here. One of our big questions is how do zooplankton and small fish manage in the persistent river flows and tidal currents of coastal systems. We use a variety of research tools that allow us to visualize biological distribution patterns synoptically with the physical habitat. Bioacoustics provide a powerful tool to quantify marine organisms over multiple trophic levels to either spatially map biological distributions or record long time-series from a fixed point to tell us about the temporal patterns of their distributions. Then we will begin to address the effects of changes to habitat and climate.

Coastal Oceanography, Bio-acoustical Oceanography, Fisheries