Reef flat in front of the UC Berkeley Gump Station, Cook's Bay, Mo'orea, French Polynesia

How do animals capture food? How do feeding strategies relate to trophic dynamics? How might these interactions shift under future conditions?

Acquiring energy is essential for any organism on Earth. Predation and the diverse morphologies that predators use to acquire prey is an exciting research direction, because feeding morphology drives the dynamics of diet breadth that affect many broad ecological patterns. We are particularly excited about predation in marine invertebrates, given the impressive diversity of morphologies that have evolved for consuming a myriad of prey. Yet, while invertebrates comprise the majority of marine biodiversity, they are often overlooked as important contributors to food webs.

Broadly, our research focuses on two central questions:

How do morphological feeding specializations contribute to trophic dynamics and ecosystem function?

How may global change alter trophic relationships?

We address these questions by examining the role of a known predator with specialized morphology, the mantis shrimp, in the trophic ecology of communities. We also approach the question from a more global perspective by determining common yet understudied organisms in marine communities, which are often missing links in food webs. We integrate novel techniques in behavioral ecology, stable isotope ecology, functional morphology, and engineering to explore these focal questions.

See our Projects page to learn more about specific projects in our lab.