I enjoy conducting research that draws upon basic ecological theory to address applied management questions. By investigating how fish populations and aquatic food webs vary across time and across systems, along abiotic and biotic gradients, my research seeks to classify aquatic systems (e.g., lakes or reservoirs) that can be managed similarly. I am particularly interested in determining how landscape features underlie differences in the structure and function of aquatic foodwebs. With this understanding, we can then determine how changes in landscape features (due to human activities such as changes in land use from forested to urban, or development of lake shorelines) affect aquatic ecosystems. Within this context, I often investigate factors influencing the early life history of fish, because understanding fish recruitment is fundamental to fisheries management. Projects in my lab integrate field sampling, historic data analysis, small-scale experiments, and statistical modeling to generate mechanistic understanding of the processes linking fish recruitment, food web dynamics, and landscape features in north temperate and midwestern U.S. lakes and resevoirs.

Mary Bremigan
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Michigan State University
13C Natural Resources
East Lansing, MI 48824-1222
(517) 432-3831
FAX: (517) 432-1699
bremigan@msu.edu