"The marine environment has been, and continues to be, a fruitful source of novel chemical compounds that are not found in terrestrial and freshwater organisms. Many of these substances show potential biomedical applications, which could lead to development of new pharmaceutical…
I investigated habitat use and age estimation methods for juvenile tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) to better understand use of natural and managed habitats in coastal South Carolina and to provide guidance for estimating life history characteristics that are dependent on age data. …
Biogeographic barriers have limit the movement of organisms, leading to speciation and shaping the development of unique regional biotas. Human-aided circumvention of biogeographic barriers, however, has increased the connectivity of isolated biotas, while changes in climate hav…
Coastal sharks represent a group of stocks for which observation, assessment, and management are particularly challenging. Large distributional ranges, complex migratory behavior, low economic value, and relatively few observations in fishery independent surveys hinder relative …
Mosquito-microbe interactions have major roles in mediating mosquito life histories and the capacity of mosquitoes to transmit pathogens to humans. While essential to better understanding mosquito life histories, our knowledge of how microbes influence oviposition behavior and d…
In the United States, the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act mandates that all federally fished species must have catch limits, which can be challenging for data-limited species. One approach is to assess and manage a group of species with similar life history characteristics,…
An imperiled population of endemic North American Burbot (Lota lota maculosa) inhabiting the lower Kootenai River in a transboundary region of Idaho and British Columbia struggles with recruitment failures linked to incompatibility between early life history patterns and upstrea…
Over the last century, there has been a shift in the United States population towards a more urbanized environment, with the vast majority of Americans (~80%) now living in urban areas. This has caused an alteration in recreational interests, as participation rates associated wi…
Nervous systems have evolved to combine environmental information with internal state to select and generate adaptive behavioral sequences. To better understand these computations and their neural implementation, natural behavior must be carefully measured and quantified. Here w…
Population collapse in forage fish occurs both naturally and due to overfishing, and is a challenge to sustainable fisheries management. Sustained low abundance can result in prolonged fishery closures and impact the abundance of other species via predation or competition. The t…
Teleost fishes occupy a range of ecosystem and habitat types subject to large seasonal fluctuations. Strategies for surviving theses seasonal environments can vary widely and are commonly accompanied by variation in brain structure. However, our understanding of how predictable …
The shellfish aquaculture industry has been identified as a sustainable source of protein to feed a growing global population. Absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) by the world’s oceans is leading to a decline in ocean pH, resulting in process termed ocean acidification (OA), and …
Effective management and conservation of migratory species requires identifying the habitats that individuals within and among populations use throughout their lives. As a diversity of life history strategies can buffer individuals and populations from changing environmental con…
Northern Shrimp (Pandalus borealis) once supported a key commercial fishery in the State of Maine. Since its closure in 2013, the stock has remained in a particularly vulnerable state following recruitment failure, overfishing, and rising water temperatures. Furthermore, without…
The Caloosahatchee River and Estuary in Southwest Florida has a history of human driven alterations by dredging, channelization, construction of several lock and dams, and an artificial connection to Lake Okeechobee. Water management has changed the quality and quantity of disch…
Ecological models allow resource managers to evaluate human impacts on fish and their habitat. However, quantitative methods that incorporate and assess uncertainty in these models are rare. These models require fish life history information, which is often uncertain, and can th…
During the last four decades, advancing perspectives in behavioural ecology have generated a surge of research focusing on individual behavioural variation. The resulting literature has highlighted the substantial effects of this variation on ecological and evolutionary processe…
Understanding both the social and biological factors surrounding conservation is important for informing effective fisheries management. This dissertation examines conservation in the American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery in a changing Gulf of Maine (GOM) using computer …
Climate change is altering freshwater habitats in the United States by increasing water temperatures and changing stream flows. These habitat changes can directly impact survival and geographic ranges of ectothermic freshwater organisms through thermal stress and habitat loss, a…