My research focuses on evaluating issues of uncertainty and validation in network analysis, a modeling technique most commonly used for analyzing food webs and increasingly used in fisheries management. My project utilizes dramatic changes in environmental conditions of high marsh ponds to determine if network analysis can detect corresponding changes in the pond’s food webs. The field component involves sampling all species (bacteria to birds) utilizing 4 ponds during 3 time periods, and the lab component involves quantification of microfauna, zooplankton, meiofauna and gut content analysis of selected macrofauna. Stable isotope analysis and field measurements of respiration will be used for model validation. I have also participated on other projects through the CRM Program including: a study in the lower Neuse River Estuary of North Carolina to assess ecosystem level impacts of fish kills (http://www.ecu.edu/org/afs/Dame.PDF), a study on the impact of sea level rise on salt marsh communities at the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER site (http://lternet.edu/sites/vcr/), and a study examining the impact of urban sprawl on mangrove and nearshore communities in LaParguera, Puerto Rico (http://erf.org/user-cgi/conference_abstract.pl?conference=erf2001&id=735). Other activities while at ECU include acting as student coordinator of outside speakers for the CRM Program and serving as teaching assistant for a tropical ecology field course in Belize (http://drjoe.biology.ecu.edu/belize/index.html). I recently returned from a year working in Washington, D.C. with the House Resources Committee as a Knauss Sea Grant Fellow, and hope to finish writing my dissertation within the year.
