Research
Interests |
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My research lies at the intersection of marine invertebrate ecology, population biology, and fisheries management. Currently I have an active program focusing on the population and larval ecology of commercially important estuarine and marine invertebrates. My previous work on the green sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis, in the Gulf of Maine contributed to understanding the life history and resource allocation dynamics of this ecologically and economically important species (see Recent Publications). Despite its wide geographic distribution and significance, there were no reliable field estimates of growth and mortality until I began my studies. Contrary to popular assumptions about this species, we documented that it is slow-growing and individuals may live more than 50 years. This work has applied significance to the sea urchin industry that has developed in North America. My recent work with the west coast purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus is a return to some of the hypotheses, problems, and field sites I studied in the 1980's. We have been examining the demography, growth plasticity, and reproduction of this species and relating our findings to large-scale and long-term oceanographic changes.
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The photo on the left (1981) is a reproduction of a 35 mm slide of a tidepool at Punta Baja - in Baja California Norte, Mexico. I sampled all the sea urchins in the pool and measured growth and mortality rates from 1981 - 1982. On January 31, 2007 we used my field notes to search that area (bottom center photo) to find the same tidepool (upper rigth photo - the angle of the sun prevented taking a picture from the same perspective - but the X --> Y transect is the same, ~ 3 m). Julio Said Palleiro Nayar and Gabriela Montano-Moctezuma (bottom photo right) are comrades and collaborators in these efforts. |