One of the conceptual bottlenecks of ecology is posed by the multitude of  interacting components and factors such as individuals, populations, habitat  patches, abiotic resources, disturbances, and others, affecting or expressed in any single community or ecosystem. I am interested in analytical approaches to such complex ecological systems, with special focus on aquatic habitats and their fauna. Specific areas of research include:

1 . Organization and structure of aquatic communities as a function of spatial  and temporal scale and  habitat heterogeneity. Much of the field work is being conducted at a site  in Jamaica and include experimentation of rock pool communities (picture above) and coral reef fish.

2.  Application of hierarchy theory to multispecies systems such as communities in lakes or rivers  Here, I treat  habitat as a hierarchically structured mosaic of subunits in  order to explain and predict patterns in species distribution and  abundance. The work involves  quantitative analysis of benthic  invertebrates in the littoral zone of Lake Ontario (Hamilton Harbour and Cootes Paradise) under natural and experimental settings.

3.  Nature, sources, and connections among various forms of ecological variability and regularities it displays.  This part of recent research uses laboratory microcosms, field manipulations, and large public domain data sets (e.g, satellite imagery, UN data bases).

Copies of publications are available on a separate page