Scott Gabara
PhD Student Scott is interested in food web dynamics within urchins barrens from Alaska to Baja California Sur. For his masters work Scott determined if community composition changes with loss of structural complexity of rhodoliths off Santa Catalina Island. He has also used stable isotopes to aid in identifying the main food web sources available to dominant rhodolith bed community members. Collaborations with Rita Mehta and Ben Higgins at UCSC using stable isotope analysis on California Moray eel gut contents and tissues are aiding in determining the role of these cryptic kelp forest predators. Scott hopes to expand his research to incorporate compound specific stable isotopes (CSIA), more in-depth analysis using GIS, and using multivariate statistics to conduct more novel future food web analyses. Marine Ecology Family Tree |