Fishing dramatically reduces the number of large individuals in fished ecosystems, particularly the large and predatory species at the top of food chains. Coupled with habitat degradation, this impact can change the way that energy flows through food webs, potentially making them less "resilient" - less able to absorb natural and human pressures without slowly degrading or unexpectedly flipping into alternate states (e.g. coral bleaching, urchin barrens).

 

My PhD research aims to tease apart the role that apex predators play in structuring temperate and tropical reef ecosystems, and how human impacts - such as fishing impacts on predatory species and habitat degradation -  have altered this dynamic. Specifically, I’m interested in how predators affect flows of energy and the distribution of biomass on reefs. I hope to use this information to infer what un-impacted reef communities should look like and to help guide management strategies that account for the role of large top predators in healthy and productive reef ecosystems.