Our Research

We examine how oceans ecosystems bounce back from disturbance and how sustainable management can promote ocean resilience in the face of global change. 

Our three major foci detailed below: biodiversity, assembly, and sustainability. 

Biodiversity

We study the causes, consequences, maintenance, and conservation of biodiversity. Specifically, why are there so many species, what drives variation in the number of species across space and time, how do so many species coexist, and how does biodiversity affect ecosystem function? 

Assembly

Many ecosystems exhibit repeated periods of development due to disturbance, seasonally regenerating habitats, and pulsed arrivals of juvenile organisms. During assembly, early arriving species can monopolize resources or alter the abiotic environment, thereby producing long-lasting effects on ecosystem structure, stability, and function. Our work examines how the sequence and timing of species arrival drive the the rate, pathway, and extent of ecosystem recovery follow disturbance. 

Sustainability

Innovation in ecology has often emerged through the pursuit of pure research. However, pure research and applied science are rapidly converging to generate innovative sustainability solutions and advances in basic science, especially through research in human-natural coupled systems. An overarching theme of our research involves merging basic and applied science to facilitate conservation, management, policy, and ecosystem valuation.