I am primarily a marine person, i.e. doing most of my field and experimental work in coastal ecosystems. But I am also deeply interested in seeing how the mechanisms found at that limited scale hold up when other marine (pelagic) and freshwater and terrestrial systems are brought into the picture. In fact, I have spent (and plan to spend) many hours in the library compiling data and trying to unveil patterns in carbon and nutrient flux across ecosystems. As Rob Peters put it, "There is no rigid, highly interactive chain of command in which each theory of lower generality confirms, but specifies, the trends in more general theories". And both approaches, community-specific and across communities, are needed in our quest towards a sustainable biosphere.

I am interested in anthropogenic stressors and aquatic responses.  A central topic I want to explore is “How anthropogenic stressors from the atmospheric and the terrestrial or watershed scale impact physical, chemical, and biological health of aquatic ecosystems? And how can we quantify the interactions and the hierarchical cause-effect links?” I was trained in Aquaculture/Fisheries (B.S.), Aquatic Ecology (M.S.), and Environmental Engineering and Science (Ph.D.). I had my field experiences from fish ponds, urban and rural lakes, and lake-river wetlands in the Central Yangtze River Basin, to streams and watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, and now in watershed-coastal systems in the Gulf of Mexico.

My research interests lie in metal accumulation in aquatic ecosystems. My Ph.D. thesis dealt with the use of the endemic Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile as a bio-indicator of metal contamination. My current research project focuses on measuring the concentrations of trace metals in water, sediment and several aquatic plants in 3 locations in the Gulf of Mexico (Mobile Delta - Alabama; Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve - Alabama and Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve - Mississippi) in order to evaluate the use of these producers as bio-indicators of metal contamination.  

My research interests lie in the evolutionary and ecological development of predator-prey interactions and their resultant impacts on benthic marine systems. My dissertation research focused on the trophic dynamics of salt marshes in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and the evolution and ecology of predator-induced defenses in gastropods. I had the fortuitous opportunity to spend two field seasons on Seymour Island, Antarctica as a PhD student, and I remain active in an ongoing project studying the responses of ancient benthic invertebrate communities to a long-term cooling trend that began in the Eocene.

I am a graduate of the Université de Liège (Belgium) with a master's degree in Oceanography. I came to the Sea Lab in January 2008 to begin a Ph. D. in marine sciences. My future research will be focused on anthropogenic impacts on seagrass ecosystems in shallow lagoons along the Gulf of Mexico. Since I am an all-around field biologist with a strong interest in ecological modeling, I will be working on an ecosystem model describing the cycles of carbon and nutrients in these shallow lagoons. In the meantime, I indulge in my love for field work by starting up a seagrass restoration project in Little Lagoon, Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Gulf Shores, Alabama.

My name is Shailesh Sharma. I am from Kathmandu, Nepal. I did my master’s degree from Tribhuvan University (Nepal) in Environmental Science. I was admitted in the University of South Alabama in spring 2009. Currently, I am working for my PhD in marine science in the ecosystem lab. My primary research interest is focused on coastal restoration and conservation of the coastal plants specifically of the estuarine ecosystems. I like to see the involvement of communities in coastal care and conservation. At the same time I am also equally interested in studying climate change, sea level rise and its effects on the seagrasses and marsh plants.

I graduated from Troy University in May 2008 with a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology. I am now pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of South Alabama.  My research is focused on restoration of black needlerush (Juncus roemerianus) marshes, and the site of my project is the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Grand Bay, MS.  The major goals of the project are to evaluate the overall effectiveness of Juncus roemerianus as a buffer of anthropogenic eutrophication in coastal systems, to determine which type marsh planting design has the best environmental effects, and to determine the growth rates of restored black needlerush marsh compared to natural marsh.  My future research will be focused on how long it takes for a restored marsh to have the same environmental impacts as a natural marsh focusing on fauna, sediment stabilization, and groundwater filtration.

My research interests are focused in marine ecology, conservation and restoration. For my upcoming project, I will be incorporating all three of these areas by comparing fish populations to seagrass bed cover in six Northern Gulf of Mexico coastal lagoons. The project will consist of field surveys of commercially and recreationally important juvenile fish, their prey, and residential species (i.e. invertebrates). Anthropogenic impacts, which are considered the main cause of seagrass loss, will also be measured. The latter part of the project will be a mesocosm experiment in which the results from the field survey will be tested in a controlled environment.