Research Philosophy

I believe one of the fundamental goals in ecology is to explain temporal and spatial patterns in organism abundance and distribution. This encompasses a broad range of questions with the ultimate goal of understanding how populations and communities function in order to sustainably use and preserve them. My research focuses on five primary areas related to this charge:

     1.  Assessing the causes and consequences of variability in coastal marine

          communities at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

     2.  Identifying the relative contribution of various biological and physical

          factors to the structuring of these communities.

     3.  Determining how different life-history traits allow populations to 

          take advantage of or buffer against environmental variability.

     4.  Developing and expanding on experimental and statistical methods that

          facilitate the study of organisms in the field.

     5.  Assessing regional and local patterns of biodiversity in coastal marine   

          habitats.

What unites these topics is the integration of organism demography and ecology with aspects of the physical and biological environment, and the use of numerous experimental and statistical approaches to discern the relative contribution of different environmental factors to the maintenance of coastal marine communities.  I believe that a sound conceptual understanding of how organisms respond to their environment is fundamental to building a comprehensive research program in coastal marine ecology and to the progress of ecology in general.