Ecology and Conservation of Fishes

Welcome to the Auster Lab

Research in the Auster lab is focused on the role that variation in habitats and landscape play in mediating the distribution and abundance of marine and estuarine fishes. We use approaches from population and community ecology as well as from the disciplines of landscape ecology and animal behavior. Our studies are conducted at diverse locations around the world ranging from small estuaries and near shore reefs to the outer continental shelf and deep sea. However, a primary focus is the waters off the coast of New England.

Our overall objective is to understand how habitat-mediated processes vary across time and space and contribute to the resultant patterns of biological diversity in the sea. Understanding the impacts of human activities, as well as evaluating management approaches that allow both the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity, are an important applied focus. We also work directly in the science-policy arena by serving on or providing information to various panels, commissions and councils focused on marine resource conservation and management at local, state, regional, national and international levels. You can't win if you don't play!