The goal of most of my research is to determine the functional and historical constraints on developmental adaptations of marine invertebrates. Current research in my lab includes evolution of rates of development, constraints on parental protection of embryos, morphological plasticity in response to food, larval feeding mechanisms, and evolutionary transitions between modes of development. Other topics of research by my students or myself have included larval dispersal, adequacy of cues to favorable sites for settling larvae, relationships between adult size and brooding, hermaphroditism, fertilization success, and functional consequences of coloniality.
Marine animals offer diverse systems for comparative and experimental studies.
Evolutionary events have been replicated in disparate clades. Their embryos, larvae, and body plans offer examples of extreme stasis and extreme change. In general, I am asking why organisms evolved as they did instead of some other way. Most of my research is at the Friday Harbor Laboratories .