Matthew Bracken - Faculty Profile

My research, based primarily at Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center in Nahant, uses an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate the linkages between marine communities and ecosystems. Recently, ecologists have begun to realize that large-scale, ecosystem-level processes are important mediators of community structure and dynamics and that local-scale phenomena, such as the ecological and physiological attributes of species, influence ecosystem functioning. In particular, my research focuses on (1) the impacts of ecosystem functioning (the transformation and flux of energy and materials) on patterns of distribution, abundance, and community structure and (2) the roles that organisms play in mediating ecosystem functions. In evaluating these linkages between communities and ecosystems, I draw from a variety of ecological sub-disciplines, including community ecology, physiological ecology, and ecosystem ecology.