Marine Ecology Lab
Julie is a doctoral student in the Byers lab and has been working with the team since January 2016. She is interested in community ecology. Some of her previous work includes studying community dynamics in eelgrass beds, monitoring recovery of disturbed sandy shore habitats, and surveying migrating shorebird foraging behaviors.
Daniel is interested in spatial interactions between ecosystem engineers and how small changes to these interactions could cause major ecosystem function shifts. He has 6 years of experience coordinating oyster restoration and living shoreline projects, which has lead to his current work studying oyster and Spartina interactions.
Website: robertdanielharris.com
Matt is interested in the relationships between the biotic and abiotic factors in coastal salt marshes. He is currently focused on how organisms move within and between wetlands and their interactions with Spartina alterniflora. His previous work focused on zooplankton community composition and cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms in freshwater reservoirs.
Megan is interested in investigating the relationships between parasites, the environment, human activity and host population cycles. Her research blends theoretical and predictive modeling with empirical experiments. Currently, she is conducting experiments on shrimp black gill disease in coastal Georgia to parameterize a model that simulates the population level effects of the disease. She is co-advised with Richard Hall in the IDEAS program.
Shelby is interested in understanding how spatial and temporal variation in coastal habitats influences species interactions, energy flows, and ecosystem dynamics. For her postdoc, she is investigating how multiple stressors affect oyster reef structure, function and disease dynamics.
Website: https://www.shelbyziegler.net/
Emily Richardson explores the role of life history traits in governing species distribution in the ocean.
Camy Teichman is an Ecology major helping on several lab projects related to oyster physiology and disease ecology.
Sarah is an Ecology major interested in socio-ecological interactions and science communication. Her work focuses on conducting DNA extractions and qPCR to assess disease dynamics in oysters and assisting with spatial analyses to understand how land use change influences oyster reefs using tools in ArcGIS.
Hanna is an Honors student with broad interests. She has aided projects on vertebrate use of salt marsh habitat and developing parasites as biological indicators.
Elianna is a senior pursuing a career in Marine Biology. Since growing up in Hawai’i, she has always had a fascination with marine life and has worked on several disease oriented projects in shrimp and oysters to expand her research skills.
Henry is an Honors student in ecology and mathematics, interested in theoretical ecology and ichthyology. He is currently working on modelling invasive species populations.