Ecologist and Conservation Biologist. PI @oceanrecoveries lab | Focus: ocean ecosystem resilience. | @ucsantabarbara | he/him/his
Santa Barbara, CA
Joined June 2011
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New paper alert! We just published a massive meta-analysis in @Ecology_Letters asking: How does crowding affect survival in reef fish populations?
The answer? It's way more complicated than we thought.
🧵 Thread on what 147 studies taught us (1/8)
Congratulations to Mack White on his new PNAS paper! He led our LTER working group at NCEAS in studying how fish diversity relates to the stability of nutrient recycling. Years of work behind this one. Well done, Mack!
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2532469…
Been using Claude Code for a few months. My R scripts no longer make me want to walk into the sea (which, as a marine biologist, is occupationally inconvenient). Made codewithclaude.net for researchers who've been meaning to learn AI coding.
Why does this matter?
Understanding density-dependence is crucial for: 🔹 Managing fisheries 🔹 Conserving endangered species 🔹 Predicting how populations respond to disturbance (hello, climate change)
But we can't predict what we don't understand. (7/8)
Bottom line: Population regulation isn't a fixed property—it's contingent on ecological context.
Want to dive deeper? 📖 Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Big thanks to @OsenbergLab and everyone who shared their data! 🙏 (8/8)
Our new study by @jamealfsamhouri @PLOSClimate reveals an uncomfortable truth about climate-ready fisheries: adaptive management strategies can boost population biomass OR harvest—but rarely both. The 'right' choice depends on what we value as a society.
journals.plos.org/climate/ar…
imilar story with carrying capacity. When it dropped, adaptive management increased harvest 36% but reduced biomass 22%. The inverse happened when carrying capacity rose. Not a win-win—a trade-off.
Coral spawning = nature’s biggest party 🎉🌊
But while corals release their eggs + sperm into the night, a hidden guest list shows up hungry… 🦀⭐🐚🦪
@TomShlesinger reveals crabs, barnacles, brittle stars & more secretly feasting on coral spawn. doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70182
🦈 Sharks, skates, and rays aren’t locked into slow, “fixed” life histories. New work in Ecology Letters shows they can shift to higher reproductive output when food availability increases — a surprising plasticity in elasmobranch biology! 👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Stratford et al. tracked >1,000 coral “babies” in the remote Chagos Archipelago after bleaching. Survival & growth were high, but after 3 yrs they still made up just 2.4% cover. Even “ideal” reefs recover painfully slow. 🌊🌱
👉 link.springer.com/article/10…
