MarineGEO and STRI Postdoctoral Fellow
My research question as a Smithsonian MarineGEO fellow at STRI is, What did the coastal marine food webs of Caribbean Panama, Chesapeake Bay, and the rocky shorelines of British Columbia “look like” in the past? My approach is to ask the fish, through measuring the chemical fingerprints within historical, sub fossil, and fossil otoliths (fish ear stones) from sediments and archives. Using otoliths as time capsules of oceans past, this research will reveal new insights on pre disturbance ecological baseline across diverse systems, prior to fishing, land use changes, and rapid climate change.
I am particularly interested in the relationship between food web structure, apex predator trophic level, and nutrient regimes on long time scales. I use nitrogen isotopes, usually in the carbonate-bound organic matrix of fish otoliths (ear stones), to track biogeochemical and food web processes.
In addition to the O’Dea Lab at STRI, I am working in collaboration with the Rick Lab at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the Hessing-Lewis Lab and McKechnie Lab at the Hakai Institute, and the Sigman Lab at Princeton University.
Rick Lab at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the Hessing-Lewis Lab and McKechnie Lab at the Hakai Institute, and the Sigman Lab at Princeton University.
O'Dea Lab 
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