Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The past decade has seen a renewed interest on marine biodiversity due mainly to growing concerns over habitat deterioration, and loss of species and key ecosystem services. Nonetheless, conservation and management priorities continue to focus on charismatic or economically valuable species, disregarding the study of critical habitats and their influence on the interactions that shape marine biodiversity. A prime example of this is the poor understanding we have of the processes organizing communities associated to marine sediments, the single habitat encompassing a vast majority of the world's seafloor. For example, in sandy and muddy shores the presence of scattered beds of oysters and mussels adds substantial complexity to these otherwise uniform coastal habitats. It is well known that these patchy beds enhance the number and diversity of coastal species, but it is still unclear what role they play in the trophic interactions taking place within and among this landscape of patches. This program combines elements of landscape ecology and predator optimal foraging to address three intriguing but blurry phenomena: the influence of biogenic patches (oyster and mussel beds) upon landscape biodiversity, their mediation of among-predator interactions, and their effects on predator-prey interactions. This program takes advantage of the ongoing spread of an invasive predator, the green crab (Carcinus maenas), and the striking preference that this species and its native counterpart exhibit for patches of biogenic habitat. Due to the nature of the questions outlined here, this mosaic of biogenic patches embedded into a sedimentary matrix represents a unique model system in which to study species interactions with broad ecological applicability. Ultimately, improved understanding of the processes associated to local phenomena like habitat patchiness, and large scale phenomena like invasion biology, will lead to a more comprehensive understanding and a better management of marine biodiversity.