OverviewSalt Marshes: The salt marshes of the southeastern US comprise a dynamic and highly productive landscape. These systems, while extensively explored, still inspire researchers from around the world investigating topics ranging from biogeochemistry to trophic cascades. In 2012, I conducted research on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia. This research was made possible by NSF's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, and paved the way to the work I am spearheading as a PhD student. My initial undergraduate research explored the importance of consumer body size (and population metabolic demand) in explaining the sign and strength of consumer-plant interactions. This work resulted in a peer-reviewed paper published in Oikos. |
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Rocky Shores:
In the summer of 2013, I worked with Dr. John Griffin at Swansea University in Wales. While in his lab, I began to explore rock pools along the rocky intertidal. These pools contain countless species of marine macroalgae, gastropods, crustaceans and fish. Initially, I hope to link the physical factors within these rock pools to unique algal community assemblages. Maine: As a summer intern at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), I worked with the Casco Bay Aquatic System Survey (CBASS) program. While this program broadly monitors several Casco Bay habitats (from the Presumpscot River to the open ocean) using a suite of sampling techniques (e.g., seining, acoustics, jigging), I primarily focused on seining 12 sites within the estuary. Using the initial data from this summer, I began to explore multivariate statistics as a way to compare community assemblages across space and time. |
PhD Research
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As a PhD student at the University of Georgia, I've continued working in salt marshes to answer a growing number of research questions. In the summer of 2015 I established monitoring plots within nine sites along the southeastern US coast (Florida - Delaware). This effort will inform my understanding of variability existing within consumer snail populations and snail-plant interactions across latitudes. I have also partnered with additional researchers to study snail distributions across spatial scales (e.g. within and among marsh sites) and at additional sites along the Georgia Coast. I look forward to expanding my research to delve into the top-down effects of additional trophic levels (e.g. nekton) and the physiological mechanisms underlying variability in snail-plant interactions (e.g. metabolic traits). |
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