I am broadly interested in food web interactions and nutrient cycling in stream ecosystems and their linkages with the terrestrial ecosystem. I am particularly interested in how species traits influence structure and function within aquatic systems.
I just finished my master's project with Alan Covich at the University of Georgia and Stephen Opsahl at the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center. My research is focused on the effects of riparian floodplain forests supplying basal resources to a coastal plain stream and the functional roles of native mussels and an invasive bivalve, Corbicula fluminea. These organisms are useful at looking at the base of the food web and are also very important contributors in stream systems by linking the flow of energy from the water column to the benthic environment. My work was in southwest Georgia at the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center on Ichawaynochaway Creek, a major tributary to the Flint River.
The research questions I addressedn this project were: (1) How does suspended organic matter vary in quality and the source due to varying spatial and temporal scales?
(2) How do the abundance and biomass of a non-native bivalve (Corbicula fluminea) compare to native mussels?
(3) Do native mussels feed and function the same as a non-native bivalve (Corbicula fluminea)?
I am currently working at the J.W. Jones Ecological Research Center on a project investigating differences in reference wetlands in comparison to wetlands affected by agriculture. In August I will be starting my doctoral work at the University of Oklahoma in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program. I plan to continue my work on freshwater mussels with Dr. Caryn Vaughn.
Unionid mussels are also the most imperiled fauna in North America, so it is essential to get a better grasp of what they are doing in the system before more species are lost.
To learn more about my research, please see my research interests.
