What is Seascape Ecology?

Seascape ecology is an emerging field of ecology that has its roots in terrestrial landscape ecology and is concerned with understanding the distributions of organisms and their drivers across varying spatial and temporal scales of organization. Much research in this arena is concerned with examining pattern and process: that is, observing patterns across the seascape and attempting to correlate them with underlying driving processes. The parallels between landscape and seascape ecology are perhaps clearest when considering faunal patterns at the seafloor since seafloor habitats typically do not vary greatly over ecologically relevant timescales (years - decades - centuries). This is not true for the pelagic realm however, where boundaries between 'habitats' are (literally) fluid and habitats are themselves mobile and transient over relatively short timescales (days - weeks - months).  Coupling a mobile environment with mobile fauna (e.g., fishes) makes our research that much more complicated, but the more we study these complex, four-dimensional habitats and their inhabitants, the more important we are discovering them to be. If you are interested in joining the lab and diving into this complexity yourself, you can get more information at this page, or reach out to me directly.​​​

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Examples of our current research topics and research programs can be found on the Research page.