Research Interests

My research has been mainly on coral reef communities: 1) why some recover from damage by human activities and others do not; and 2) how coral reef resources should be managed. For the first topic, I've focused on the interactions of crustose coralline algae, coral recruitment and herbivorous fishes, and especially how these interactions are affected by overfishing and by nutrient input. For the second topic, I've focused on the biological characteristics and life histories of the targeted coral-reef species and on the nature of ecosystem processes of coral reefs. These aspects are both so different from those of other marine communities that the resources of coral reefs must be managed in a fundamentally different way. Since I've come to Hawaii, I have started to examine whether Marine Protected Areas affect ecosystem processes such as coral recruitment and substratum binding. The Hawaiian concept of ahupua'a, or management on the basis of watershed, is being examined in the north coast valley of Kahana as the output of the river increases.