Long-term experiments on coral reefs

Consumers strongly structure ecological communities, however, consumers are being overexploited by humans across many ecosystems. On coral reefs, overfishing leads to decreases in the abundance of herbivorous fishes, which are important for controlling the abundance of macroalgae that compete with corals. I use long-term experiments to test the effects of overfishing on benthic communities on coral reefs.  This work has shown how the loss of consumers can lead to dissimilar community trajectories, and alternative pathways to coral- or algal-dominance.

Doing surveys in a plot of the long-term exclosure experiment.

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Cross-system synthesis

My experimental work joins case-studies from other systems showing that the loss of consumers can lead to increased community variability. I am currently co-leading a 2-year synthesis working group funded by the Long-Term Ecological Research Network that investigates the effects of consumer loss on community assembly across aquatic and terrestrial systems. This working group utilizes experimental studies using a common method, exclosure of consumers, to evaluate the role of consumers on community variability. This work will synthesize data across ecosystems from coral reefs to African savannas, including data from 11 LTER sites. You can read more about our working group on our website and read the funding announcement here.