My lab is part of an NSERC strategic grant-funded project studying  the patterns and processes underlying biodiversity of hard-bottom marine invertebrates in target areas of the Bay of Fundy and Scotian Shelf. The long-term goal of this collaboration with Rémy Rochette (R. Rochette website) also at UNBSJ, Gerhard Pohle at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre, and France Dufresne at UQAR) is to contribute to the protection of marine biodiversity in Atlantic Canada by assisting in the management of regions that have been identified as ecologically and biologically significant by DFO. This project will test the use of settlement cages (collectors) as a tool for monitoring biodiversity of benthic marine invertebrates and small benthic fishes in rocky subtidal habitats.
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Most studies assume that patterns of recruitment of new individuals reflect larval supply or patterns of settlement of larvae on the sea bottom. However, recruitment is also influenced by mortality and dispersal of juveniles after they have settled and metamorphosed out of the larval phase. My research has been demonstrating that these events that occur shortly after the settlement of the larvae can be crucial.
My lab has been examining events during the early post-settlement period in a number of ways. Most of our research is being carried out in the Bay of Fundy.(see Lab Members for current and past graduate student projects). Many invertebrates like clams are transported by currents and waves after they have settled onto the bottom and metamorphosed from the larval stage. On mudflats, graduate students in my lab have been studying patterns of abundance and distribution, dispersal, and predation of the soft shell clam. I have collaborated with researchers at NIWA and University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand and Rutgers University to examine dispersal of juvenile bivalves.
In the rocky subtidal, PhD student Lindsay Jennings is examining the roles of settlement patterns, predation, and competition in determining patterns of recruitment of urchins and sea stars. |
particular biological and ecological significance and the mechanisms underlying their spatio-temporal dynamics. This is an NSERC strategic project in which I am a collaborator.