Quantifying marine macrophyte wrack distributions along beaches of the Pacific Northwest coast
Collaborators: Sally Hacker (advisor), Bruce Menge (advisor) and Peter Ruggiero
For my masters work, I conducted a large-scale survey of algae and seagrass washed onshore, also known as wrack, on beaches along the Northern California, Oregon and Southern Washington coasts. Wrack contributes an important source of nitrogen for beach ecosystems, as well as provides a food resource for small terrestrial and beach invertebrates, which in turn are food for coastal birds. The presence or absence of wrack could have important implications for ecosystem function, particularly for dune ecosystems, anchored by beach grasses that may use the nitrogen (and potentially other nutrients from the ocean) contributed by wrack for growth. I found that there are regional differences in the type of wrack that washes onshore, with northern beaches primarily receiving eelgrass from estuaries, and southern beaches primarily receiving large patches of kelp from offshore sources. These differences could have various effects on the types of invertebrate communities that exist on each beach, as well as be a source of variation in the amount of nutrients that are available for use by terrestrial organisms.
Collaborators: Sally Hacker (advisor), Bruce Menge (advisor) and Peter Ruggiero
For my masters work, I conducted a large-scale survey of algae and seagrass washed onshore, also known as wrack, on beaches along the Northern California, Oregon and Southern Washington coasts. Wrack contributes an important source of nitrogen for beach ecosystems, as well as provides a food resource for small terrestrial and beach invertebrates, which in turn are food for coastal birds. The presence or absence of wrack could have important implications for ecosystem function, particularly for dune ecosystems, anchored by beach grasses that may use the nitrogen (and potentially other nutrients from the ocean) contributed by wrack for growth. I found that there are regional differences in the type of wrack that washes onshore, with northern beaches primarily receiving eelgrass from estuaries, and southern beaches primarily receiving large patches of kelp from offshore sources. These differences could have various effects on the types of invertebrate communities that exist on each beach, as well as be a source of variation in the amount of nutrients that are available for use by terrestrial organisms.
Understanding how marine biodiversity varies over space and time
Collaborators: Selina Heppell, Susan Piacenza, Allison Barner, Elizabeth Cerny-Chipman, Chenchen Shen, Tye Kindinger, Casey Benkwitt, Kurt Ingeman, Kate Boersma, Jake Nelson, Amy Jo Lindsley
I was part of an NSF-funded distributed graduate seminar, the Dimensions of Biodiversity, from 2011-2013. Our research group used a long-term dataset of marine benthic organisms along the California Current collected and provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to examine 1) how patterns of fish and invertebrate biodiversity were correlated with environmental variables over time, and 2) how consistent or inconsistent 'hotspots' of groundfish diversity were over time. Both of these publications are currently in review.
Collaborators: Selina Heppell, Susan Piacenza, Allison Barner, Elizabeth Cerny-Chipman, Chenchen Shen, Tye Kindinger, Casey Benkwitt, Kurt Ingeman, Kate Boersma, Jake Nelson, Amy Jo Lindsley
I was part of an NSF-funded distributed graduate seminar, the Dimensions of Biodiversity, from 2011-2013. Our research group used a long-term dataset of marine benthic organisms along the California Current collected and provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to examine 1) how patterns of fish and invertebrate biodiversity were correlated with environmental variables over time, and 2) how consistent or inconsistent 'hotspots' of groundfish diversity were over time. Both of these publications are currently in review.