Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Halifax, Canada
My research focuses on how biological systems are structured by environment. In particular, I am interested in the processes that regulate connectivity in the marine environment. Mainly my research has focussed on movement and dispersal of the early life history stages of marine taxa. I have used ichthyoplankton surveys, biophysical simulations, laboratory experiments and otolith microchemistry to understand how the biological and physical environments interact to regulate population structure. More recently I have utilized population genomic approaches to describe how climatic variation influences species distribution in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. I am currently using these tools to understand how species and community distributions are linked to habitat and to predict how marine systems might respond to climate change. I hope to build this research into the design and monitoring of Marine Protected Areas in the Northwest Atlantic.
