Mark D. Bertness
Robert P. Brown Professor of Biology
Ph.D., University of Maryland

My research is focused on the ecology and conservation biology of marine shoreline communities. I am generally interested in the processes that structure natural communities and have a long-standing interest in the role of positive interactions in community organization and incorporating positive interactions into the mindset of community ecologists and conservation biologists. Recent work in my lab has focused on elucidating how human disturbances are triggering consumer control in salt marsh ecosystems. Most of my work is with plant and animal communities in New England, particularly salt marsh and rocky intertidal habitats, but I am also interested in the biogeography of marine communities and tropical ecosystems. My students and I are testing the generality of our New England work on shoreline in Argentina and Chile with South American graduate student collaborators. My book "Atlantic Shorelines" (Princeton University Press, 2007) discusses my interests and approach to studying marine intertidal communities.

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