About

Research overview

I study how environmental variability and extreme events shape benthic ecosystem processes, with a particular focus on tidal-flat and coastal systems. My work asks how the temporal structure of environmental stress—such as the timing, duration, and variability of heat events—affects not only average performance, but also response variability, predictability, and resilience in benthic invertebrates.

To address these questions, I combine controlled mesocosm experiments, behavioural and physiological measurements, and mechanistic and statistical modelling. Across projects, I aim to link individual-level responses to sediment dynamics and broader ecosystem functioning under climate-driven change.

Core research themes

Environmental variability and marine heatwaves

Marine heatwaves are often treated as shifts in mean temperature, but organisms experience them as temporally structured events. My research examines how differences in heatwave timing, duration, and fluctuation patterns reshape physiological performance and behaviour, and how these effects differ from constant or ramped warming scenarios.

Behaviour–sediment coupling

Benthic organisms actively modify their physical environment through bioturbation. I investigate how individual behaviours—such as burrowing, movement, and sediment reworking—scale up to influence sediment mixing, stability, and erosion. This work connects organismal responses to feedbacks that regulate tidal-flat morphology and ecosystem functioning.

Variability, thresholds, and resilience

Beyond mean responses, I focus on how biological variability emerges under environmental stress. Using variance-based metrics and breakpoint-oriented analyses, I explore when increasing environmental variability amplifies biological variability, and when responses instead converge or stabilize. This perspective provides insight into thresholds and early-warning signals of ecological change.

Analytical and experimental approach

Methodologically, my work integrates mesocosm experiments, high-resolution behavioural assays, and reproducible data workflows in R and Python. I place particular emphasis on transparent data structures, variance-aware analyses, and workflows that can be readily extended to synthesis and comparative studies.

Conceptually, I aim to move toward a more predictive understanding of benthic resilience by explicitly incorporating temporal variability into experimental design and analysis, rather than treating it as background noise.