Jenn Caselle

Biography

Dr. Jenn Caselle is a Research Biologist at the Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara. She is also a PI for PISCO (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans; www.piscoweb.org). She received her B.S. in Zoology from U.C. Berkeley and her PhD in Marine Ecology from U.C. Santa Barbara. Dr. Caselle’s research is broadly focused on marine conservation and reef ecology. She currently splits her time in both coral reef and kelp forest ecosystems studying community dynamics, recruitment and larval dispersal and movement patterns of fishes. Dr. Caselle has designed and managed a large-scale field-based monitoring program of kelp forests in the California current ecosystem with goals of assessing long-term changes due to climate and anthropogenic impacts. This program has become the basis of Marine Protected Area monitoring throughout California and the west Coast of the United States.

Research

By training I am a marine ecologist, with specific interests in the study of kelp forest and coral reef ecosystems. My research focuses on the ecology of coastal marine organisms, their role in nearshore ecosystems, and the response of these ecosystems to environmental change and human impacts. My work is fundamentally empirical and field-based, and I pair field observations and experiments with cutting-edge laboratory analyses, statistical approaches, and modeling tools. My research questions range from early life stages to whole ecosystems, including: (1) understanding connectivity among populations and habitats via movements of larval and of older life stages; (2) investigation of the causes and consequences of demographic and life history variation among populations; and (3) evaluation of changes in the structure and function of kelp forest and coral reef communities associated with marine protection. My research is multi-disciplinary and conservation oriented, and as such, relies on strong collaboration with scientists from a variety of disciplines.