My primary research focus is on fisheries oceanography and marine ecology. I study the causes of temporal and spatial variation of marine populations, as well as the management implications of the factors involved. A substantial fraction of my work revolves around early life stages of fish, as in marine organisms, spatial and temporal variability at the population level is closely linked to events that occur during the very first few months or years of life. I have also worked extensively on the ecology of adult stages, predator-prey trophic interactions in marine ecosystems, and on dispersal and distribution patterns of scyphozoa jellyfish.
I particularly value merging the ecological and quantitative disciplines to study processes that affect the dynamics of marine populations in space and time. Thus, I work with modelers, statisticians, and fisheries biologists from both academic and management institutions to tackle practical problems that interface between ecology and management. I actively search for new methodologies from other disciplines that could be used to address practical problems in fisheries ecology. For example, many of my research investigations have required the development or application of principles from terrestrial ecology.
