Interests and Current Projects

Research Interests

Coastal Fish Response to Anthropogenic Change

Fish/Habitat Interactions

Urban Sea Socio-Ecological Systems

Salmon in the Marine Ecosystem

Cross-Habitat Subsidies

Habitat Restoration and Fish Response

Current Projects

Cumulative Effects Evaluation

We are part of a collaborative team (with Skagit River System Cooperative, NOAA-NWFSC, Tulalip Tribes, Cramer Fish Sciences, and Puget Sound Partnership) developing a plan for a study on measuring the cumulative effects of multiple restoration projects in the Whidbey Basin for juvenile Chinook salmon. This project is funded by the Puget Sound Partnership, was initiated in 2022, and will continue in 2023.

Surf Scoter Predation on Herring Eggs

We have a project in collaboration with WDFW funded by the Puget Sound Partnership--we are investigating herring egg mortality by surf scoters. Herring are everyone's favorite food (salmon, seals, sea birds) but we don't fully understand what controls their populations. For this project we are evaluating mortality at the egg stage to find out the extent to which surf scoters are limiting recruitment to the larval phase. Graduate student, Heidi Stewart, is leading this project for her thesis work. You can find out more about her and her research here.

State of the Salish Sea

The State of the Salish Sea report is a project through the Salish Sea Institute at WWU. The objective is to provide a credible assessment of the marine waters of the Salish Sea ecosystem by highlighting two key and overarching threats—1. urbanization and the associated land-use changes and impacts to the seascape and 2. climate change. We identified the key ecosystem variables impacted by these threats, illustrated the relationships, processes, and localized impacts within the system, and identified information gaps and emerging concerns. We highlighted where actions can be taken to protect living resources in the Salish Sea from current and future threats. The report is now available!

Jellyfish/Zooplankton Interactions

We are investigating the common moon jellyfish, Aurelia labiata, to assess whether jellyfish have large effects on salmon, forage fish, zooplankton and the broader ecosystem of Puget Sound when occurring in large aggregations using three different approaches. We're using mesocosm studies with small Aurelia to study predation and consumption of zooplankton, field studies to relate jellyfish abundance inside and outside of aggregations with variation in plankton, chlorophyll, and nutrients in inlets where dense aggregations occur, and an ecosystem model to calibrate scenarios using both the field and experimental data. Funding comes from NOAA and WA Sea Grant and the project is in collaboration with Drs. Julie Keister (UW-Oceanography, lead PI), Correigh Greene, Hem Morzaria-Luna, and Isaac Kaplan (NOAA-NWFSC) and a team at Highline College's MaST center, led by Rus Higley.

Salish Sea Marine Survival Project

As part of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, we are involved with a number of projects and collaborations

Ecosystem Indicators

We are using time series of environmental and ecosystem variables to retrospectively identify causes of declines in salmon marine survival. This project involves aggregating data and conducting statistical analyses aimed at identifying relationshsips between survival and ecosystem variables.

Bottom-Up Processes

One hypothesis for declining Chinook salmon survival is that bottom-up processes (water column properties and prey production) are limiting growth, and ultimately survival. We're examining correlations among growth and survival, zooplankton and forage fish prey abundance, primary production, and seasonal variation in environmental attributes.

Geoducks as Indicators of Primary Production

Geoduck are long-lived, sessile organisms. We are using geoduck growth (measured by shell incremenet widths) as an indicator of primary production in the Salish Sea.

Past Projects

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