Research Opportunities Database

Mark Bertness

Robert P. Brown Professor of Biology

Department: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Phone: +1 401 863 2280

Email: Mark_Bertness@Brown.EDU

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Location:

Walter Hall, Room 201 - 863-2280

Research Summary

The research is focused on understanding the organization and dynamics of natural communities. I use manipulative field experiments in marine shoreline communities to examine how patterns in natural communities are generated and maintained.

Past or Present Projects Available:

Variation in direction of density dependence across an environmental gradient on New England cobble beaches; The scent of a predator: The effects of chemical threats on shell selection in hermit crabs, Pagurus samuelis and Pagurus hirsutiusculus; The cryptic invasion of Phragmites australis in Southern New England Salt Marshes; The dynamics of bottom-up and top-down controls in a new England Salt Marsh; Effects of drought, entropication and consumer pressure on New England salt marsh structure; The effect of water column dissolved organic matter on coral microbial populations; Who wins the food fight? Inter-and intraspecific competition between two species of apple snails; Substrate effects on Sesarma reticulatum population, herbivory, and behavior in Cape Cod salt marshes; The effects of ocean acidification on shellfish larval development; Is overfishing triggering the die-off of New England marshes?; The effects of a thermal gradient on the population genetic structure of Nucella lappius of North Atlantic; Population ecology of the marine gastropod Hexaplex princeps in the Galapagos Islands; Flowering Patterns of Spartina alterniflora transplants in a New England Salt Marsh; The tropic role of sea stars in the Galapagos Marine Reserve; Heterogeneity of root distribution and biomass allocation in Spartina alterniflora within a New England salt marsh