John J. Stachowicz

Research Interests

I am a community ecologist focused on the causes of patterns of biodiversity and the functional consequences of biodiversity. My current research falls into three inter-related areas. First, I apply the approaches and questions of community ecology to understanding the distribution of functional and genetic variation in foundation species that form the habitat on which ecosystems are based. Second, I use comparative experimental approaches to investigate biogeographic scale patterns and processes in species interactions and community assembly. Finally, I work to improve our understanding of the fundamental role of species interactions such as mutualism and facilitation in community ecology with current efforts focused on marine plant-microbe interactions. My empirical work focuses on eelgrass (Zostera marina) and its associated microbes, invertebrates and fish to integrate from genes to communities. This work has incorporated approaches from areas such as genomics and microbiology into community ecology, and has an aim of translating our findings to enhance the success of seagrass restoration. Much of our local field and laboratory work is based at Bodega Marine Laboratory and in the Bodega and Tomales Bay areas, with collaborative research elsewhere in California and around the world.

Center Affiliations

• Center for Population Biology

Graduate Program Affiliations

• Population Biology Graduate Group
• Graduate Group in Ecology