Our lab focuses on understanding the mechanisms that drive patterns in diversity (including impacts of human activities), how diversity impacts ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services, and how ecology can inform, motivate, and learn from management actions. Most of the lab’s field projects focus on understanding, restoring, and conserving coastal marine communities (e.g., oyster reefs, salt marshes, seagrass meadows), while lab and computational work explore topics including oil spill effects, diversity in hyperdiverse systems such as kelp forests and rain forests, and the practice of species reintroductions.