Biophysical Ecology of Environmental Fluctuation

Florence I. M. Thomas, Associate Researcher

My research integrates biomechanics, physiology, molecular biology, and coastal oceanography to examine how the physical environment influences key physiological, ecological and ecosystem processes in tropical vegetated canopies, coral reefs, and other shallow coastal habitats.

My research interests focus in three areas

1) how water flow and other physical parameters influence chemical exchange between organisms and the water column,

2) how shifts in algal communities affect nutrient exchange, grazing and other aspects of ecosystem function, and

3) how water flow and gamete properties influence reproduction in marine invertebrates.

 

Latest publication:

Adhitya, A., F.I.M. Thomas, and B. B. Ward. 2007, Diversity of assimilatory nitrate reductase genes from plankton and epiphytes associated with a seagrass bed. Microbial Ecology, 54:587-597.