The broad context of my research is the population and community ecology of benthic marine organisms. My work primarily focuses on the ecology of reproduction and early life-history stages of marine invertebrates, particularly as they relate to recruitment dynamics and life history theory. I am especially interested in how factors or stresses that influence one life stage may have cascading effects on subsequent life stages, as well as the potential interactive effects of multiple stressors, and how organisms with different life history strategies cope with stressors at different times of life. For example, we have been investigating intertidal benthic egg masses that are exposed to a variety of stressors at low tide (i.e. temperature, salinity, oxygen) but also high ultraviolet radiation, and comparing species that hatch as free-swimming larvae that will undergo further development in the plankton, with those that hatch out as juveniles.
Another theme of current projects on-going in my lab is to examine how variability in larval condition or quality originates in the pelagic environment (for planktonic larvae) or via maternal investment (for direct developing larvae), and the role such variability plays in determining recruitment success of individuals and cohorts under different benthic environmental conditions.
Other work in my lab includes examining variability and trade-offs in maternal investment, larval behaviour, species interactions in rocky intertidal communities, and processes that generate and maintain community structure. In addition to these specific on-going projects I am generally interested in, and work across, several fields of research encompassing rocky reef/intertidal ecology, dispersal, larval ecology, and invertebrate biology
