Jennifer Verduin

Biography

Jennifer Verduin is an oceanographer with many years of experience in research on the role of high latitude oceans in decadal climate variability and thermo-haline circulation. More recently she has focused on the impact of physical processes on biological processes and ecosystem dynamics including the effects of coastal hydrodynamics on benthic vegetation, particles and structures; influence of epibenthic organisms on hydrodynamics based on their structural parameters (flume and tank studies), sediment/particle distribution, structuring of seagrass habitats, seagrass rehabilitation, Radar (Microwave) Remote Sensing of surface currents, coastal oceanography and has an interest in numerical modelling of coastal ocean processes.  

Research Interest

Oceanography of the coastal ocean: the role of water motion on marine ecosystems; the effects of water motion on benthic communities and vice versa; pollen and propagule release and movement within seagrass meadows and far field dispersion.. Sediment dynamics around and within seagrass ecosystems, effect of sedimentation on benthic structures. Seagrass ecology: The distribution and community structure of local seagrass ecosystems; the role of physical factors in seagrass community structure; role of seagrass as a coastal engineering species. Seagrass rehabilitation: Rehabilitation of seagrasses and processes influencing recruitment success of seedlings, both in Western Australia and elsewhere in Australia. Involved in large-scale and experimental transplantation of seagrasses on Success Bank and in Cockburn Sound, as part of the Seagrass Research and Rehabilitation Plan. Climate studies: the effect of the changing climate on the marine environment , stress behaviour of marine ecosystems.