Affiliated Scientists

Dr. David Kimbro
Office: 850-697-4092
Fax: 850-697-3822
E-mail: dkimbro at bio.fsu.edu

Ph. D. 2008 University of California, Davis
M.S. University of California at Davis
B.S. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Curriculum Vitae

RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS

I am currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory (FSUCML). In general, I research how species interact to affect the diversity of ecological communities as well as how these biological interactions are altered by physical processes and human impacts. Thus far, I have examined how such processes propagate throughout food webs to affect habitat-forming species in marine systems (e.g., oysters, salt marsh, and mussel beds). These habitats are ideal study systems because they are generally influenced by a diversity of species interactions and dramatic physical gradients that are in turn linked to climate and coastal oceanography. Because habitat-forming species perform critical ecosystem functions such as filtering water, providing nursery habitat, and buffering coastal erosion, my research also incorporates an important applied dimension. By examining human impacts such as biological invasions and habitat modification, I aim to generate data that will help restore key estuarine habitats and control invasive species.

Using the habitats created by oysters and smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), I am examining the following topics:

1. Predator-prey interactions
2. Physical processes and benthic-pelagic coupling
3. Habitat-forming species and facilitation

(1) Predator-prey interactions

How predators help organize ecological communities has been one of the most intensively studied subjects in ecology. In addition to demonstrating that predators can affect community structure by consuming prey, this collective research has also shown that predators can influence community structure by non-consumptively affecting prey traits such as behavior and morphology. These different predator effects, however, often unequally cascade to lower trophic levels and in turn create vastly different outcomes for important resources at the bottom of food webs such as oysters and salt marshes. Click on images for larger photos with captions.

For instance, one of my recent collaborative efforts illustrated that biological invasions can modify whether predators consumptively and/or non-consumptively benefit critical oyster habitat in a California estuary. Spatial variability in the presence of these predator-prey interactions actually explains how half the estuary's oyster habitat has been lost. Read More.....

 

 

At the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory (FSUCML), I am investigating how non-consumptive effects of predators fit into an important trophic cascade involving blue crabs, periwinkle snails, and smooth cordgrass . Although Dr. Brian Silliman (University of Florida) elegantly demonstrated that the consumptive effects of blue crabs are necessary to prevent periwinkles from causing die-offs of smooth cordgrass in southeast Atlantic salt marshes, it is unclear if this trophic cascade operates similarly in cordgrass meadows along the Panhandle and Big Bend of Florida. This unique area has different tidal regimes (Diurnal to mixed semi-diurnal) and an endemic predatory gastropod (crown conch) that may alter how the density and behavior of periwinkles are affected by predators. These topics are being addressed by field surveys as well as field and laboratory experiments. See more photographs about research

(2) Physical processes and benthic-pelagic coupling

Understanding how nearshore oceanography affects benthic population and community dynamics remains one of the outstanding challenges for marine ecology, despite a growing number of studies that link the two. Although coastal upwelling winds generally increase the biological productivity of many coastlines, it is unclear whether they generally increase or decrease the growth and size of habitat-forming invertebrates that are filter-feeders (e.g., mussels). Tidal excursion gradients of low-inflow estuaries, however, may allow this uncertainty to exists because upwelling can promote food-rich (phytoplankton) waters that fuel filter-feeder growth but they can also reduce water temperatures that can in turn slow feeding rates, assimilation, and thus growth. In fact, many coastal areas have been shown to have larger and faster growing filter-feeders when upwelling is weak and water temperature is warm. See conceptual model. But in a recent study with colleagues from UC Davis, I demonstrated how physical features of coastlines prevent the ubiquitous application of this generalization by allowing very intense upwelling winds to fuel the growth of oysters within a low-inflow estuary of central California. Read more......

 

Because the frequency and magnitude of tidal inundation may vary how blue crabs and crown conchs affect the density and behavior of periwinkles, my interest in cordgrass meadows along the Panhandle and Big Bend of Florida also concerns quantifying how and why tidal inundation patterns vary spatially. For this research focus, I am collaborating with a physical oceanographer at UC Davis (Dr. John Largier) to understand which forcing variables (wind, waves, tide, air pressure) best predict spatial patterns in tidal inundation. In addition to identifying the short-term physical processes that may allow inundation to influence food web interactions within cordgrass, we are also using this research to assess how a long-term forcing variable (sea level rise) is varying tidal inundation throughout the Panhandle and Big Bend.

(3) Habitat-forming species and facilitation

Theory predicts that the diversity of sessile species can be maintained when disturbance or predators limit the abundance of competitively dominant sessile organisms. This theory, however, fails to address how the subsequent loss of habitat provided by a competitive dominant also affects associated mobile organisms and thus overall community diversity. We used a manipulative field experiment to test theories on how disturbance affects the diversity of different functional groups and the overall community. Read more......

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Kimbro, D. L. E. D. Grosholz, A. Baukus, N. Nesbitt, N. Travis, S. Attoe, and C. Coleman-Hulbert. 2009. Invasive species cause large-scale loss of native California oysters by disrupting trophic cacades. Oecologia 160: 563-575.

Kimbro, D. L., J. Largier, and E. D. Grosholz. 2009. Coastal oceanographic processes influence the growth and size of a key estuarine species, the Olympia oyster. Limnology and Oceanography 54(5): 1425-1437.

A. R. Hughes, J. E. Byrnes, D. L. Kimbro, and J. J. Stachowicz. 2007. Reciprocal relationships and potential feedbacks between biodiversity and disturbance. Ecology Letters 10(9): 849-864.

Kimbro, D. L. and E. D. Grosholz. 2006. Disturbance influences oyster community richness and evenness, but not diversity. Ecology 87(9): 2378-2388.

Grabowski, J. H., A. R. Hughes, D. L. Kimbro, and M. A. Dolan. 2005. How habitat setting influences restored oyster reef communities. Ecology 86(7): 1926-1935.

Grabowski, J. H. and D. L. Kimbro. 2005. Predator-avoidance behavior extends trophic cascades to refuge habitats. Ecology 86(5): 1312-1319.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS:

Nicholas Coria - FSU DIS - Environmental Studies
Justis Freeley - FSU DIS - Biology
Sarah Seip - FSU certificate program - Biology

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT VOLUNTEERS:

Nikki Calhoun
Linda Sheldon