A major focus of my research is how marine organisms will cope with modern stressors including land based pollution and climate change. I use modern techniques including gene expression (RNA seq) to track physiological response to stress. I'm also using population genetic tools (RADseq) to measure the variability of stress response within and among populations and species.
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Recruitment ecology is critical to understanding how populations and communities are connected and how they recover after a disturbance. I study multiple aspects of recruitment including; larval supply, settlement and post-settlement ecology. My recent research has focused on coral recruitment because it is poorly understood and failing at many locations but critical to the persistence of coral reefs around the world.
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Crustose coralline algae (CCA) are important components of healthy ecosystems. These algae are critical drivers of recruitment, but we still have a poor understanding of their distribution and diversity. I research how different species of CCA can influence the settlement ecology of invertebrates, and how species compete with other benthic organisms. CCA taxonomy is challenging and often limits our understanding of species level interactions. I'm developing a dataset of genetic barcodes and matching those to morphological features to build a critical database of CCA diversity. Additionally I've posted a series of species ID guides that I've designed to help researchers and educators identify different species of Caribbean CCA.
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Marine chemical ecology is a growing field of research that can explain the mechanisms of ecological interactions. Marine natural products are potential novel medicines and I integrate analytical chemistry with field ecology to test the natural functions of these compounds. If we cause marine organisms to go extinct we will no longer have this natural library of medicines.
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