Jon Lefcheck

I’m a post-doctoral researcher studying marine ecology at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, The College of William & Mary in Gloucester Point, VA.

My interests span from community ecology, with a focus on seagrasses, to biodiversity science to ecological statistics.

My research is focused on understanding the causes and consequences of biological diversity, particularly with respect to human well-being. I’m particularly interested in new ways to think about biological variation, including organismal functional traits and evolutionary history.

My post-doctoral work involves understanding the patterns and drivers of submerged aquatic vegetation in the Chesapeake Bay over the past 30 years.

At the moment, I’m:

• Using aerial survey data and long-term water quality monitoring to understand trends and drivers of submersed aquatic vegetation in Chesapeake Bay over the past 30 years;
• Deploying a novel assay, the Squidpop, to characterize patterns in marine predation through space and time and across habitats;
• Exploring how restoration of eelgrass habitat in the Delmarva coastal bays of the mid-Atlantic have facilitated the return of associated animals, including the commercially important bay scallop.

• Clarifying global biogeographic patterns, drivers of productivity, and mechanisms of community assembly in reef fishes using data from the Reef Life Survey network;
• Describing large-scale trends in marine predation pressure in seagrass beds as part of the Ocean Bitemap network;
• Understanding how different management actions influence the integrated suite of ecosystem functions that underpin healthy coastal ecosystems;
• Progressing the theory and application of structural equation modeling (SEM) to ecological research.

You can read more about my various projects here.

I started this blog, sample(ECOLOGY), to share some of the thoughts, explorations, and R code that I stash away on a daily basis. Hopefully someone out there will find some use for it as well.

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