Department of Biology

Changing estuarine ecosystems and impacts on community ecology

Dr. Robert Dunn
USC Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences

February 2, 2024
3-4 pm

Hosted By Dr. Tim Lee

Estuaries, where fresh and saltwater mix, are naturally dynamic due to the strong influence of tidally-driven environmental conditions. Increasingly, anthropogenic impacts are leading to additional changes within these critical habitats. I will present a series of studies showing profound changes within salt marsh estuaries and then discuss recent work investigating the species interactions and habitat utilization of various organisms within these systems, including shrimps, oyster reef fauna, and marsh crabs. These studies either directly assess the effects of humans on estuarine ecosystems or improve our understanding of the environmental processes that underlie the communities we observe in coastal habitats. The work I will share is a subset of the projects that my lab is working on, with the goal of testing basic ecological principles while also contributing to the improved management of coastal resources.