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Email:
brush@vims.edu
Office: Chesapeake Bay Hall S209
Phone: (804) 684-7402
Fax: (804) 684-7752
Research Interests
“A complex field such as oceanography tends to be
subject to two opposite approaches. The first is the descriptive, in
which several quantities are measured simultaneously and their
inter-relationships derived by some sort of statistical method. The
other approach is the synthetic one, in which a few reasonable although
perhaps oversimplified assumptions are laid down, these serving as a basis
for mathematical derivation of relationships.”
- Gordon A. Riley (1946)
I am a
coastal systems ecologist and numerical modeler. Following Riley's
early description of marine research, I strive to maintain a balance between observational-based
ecological investigations and synthetic, interdisciplinary ecosystem modeling
and data synthesis. My research focuses on the oceanography, ecology,
and biogeochemistry of coastal marine ecosystems including estuaries,
lagoons, and sounds, and spans a range of scales from large estuaries like
Chesapeake Bay and Narragansett Bay, to sub-estuaries like the York River, to very shallow systems like the Lynnhaven
River, VA and the RI coastal ponds. I
am particularly interested in systems with a diversity of primary producers
(e.g. phytoplankton, macroalgae, SAV, epiphytes, benthic microalgae), their
response to nutrient enrichment or reduction, the processes leading to algal
blooms and hypoxia / anoxia, the processes controlling metabolism and C and N
cycling, and the process of eutrophication.
I am also interested in linking these lower trophic level processes to
the functioning of higher trophic levels to understand system response to
multiple stressors operating at both ends of the food chain (i.e. bottom-up
and top-down controls) such as nutrient loading, climate change, and
overfishing. My modeling program is
focused on the exploration of innovative numerical modeling techniques that
incorporate a combination of mechanistic, empirical, and statistical
approaches for the purpose of (1) heuristic study of ecosystem structure and
function and (2) increasing model utility for management applications. A major focus of my work involves critical
evaluation of model formulations, how best to represent biological processes
in mathematical form, and development of alternative formulations when
traditional methods fail. I am keenly
interested in methods of model validation, issues of model complexity,
detail, and spatiotemporal resolution, and quantification of uncertainty
through techniques such as Monte Carlo and stochastic simulation.
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Current Projects
- VIMS
Chesapeake Bay Initiative: Deep-Open Water Component. Funded by VA DEQ. PI’s: I.C. Anderson, H.I. Kator, and M.J.
Brush.
- Defense
Coastal/Estuarine Research Program (DCERP). Funded by SERDP, Department of
Defense. Multi-institutional
research program including VIMS, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, Duke University, VA
Tech, Univ.
of South Carolina,
NOAA Beaufort Lab, USGS, and RTI International. VIMS PI’s: I.C. Anderson, M.J. Brush, and J.E.
McNinch.
- Modeling
tools to predict hypoxia/anoxia in upper Narragansett
Bay. Funded by the
NOAA Coastal Hypoxia Research Program.
PI’s: C.A. Oviatt,
D. Bergondo, M.J. Brush, D. Codiga, C.F. Deacutis, C. Kincaid, J.N.
Kremer, S.W. Nixon, W. Prell, and D. Ullman.
- Modeling
Atlantic menhaden in support of nutrient and multispecies
management. Funded by the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program. PI’s: M.J. Brush, R.J. Latour, and E.A.
Canuel.
- Synthesis of data from the National Estuarine
Research Reserve System-Wide Monitoring Program for the Mid-Atlantic
region. Funded by the NOAA
Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology
(CICEET). PI’s: K.A. Moore and M.J. Brush.
- Improved performance capabilities for the ACROBAT
towed instrument platform: data
collection, calibration and interpolation/graphical visualization. Funded by the NOAA Cooperative Institute
for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET). PI’s: L.W. Haas, H.I. Kator, I.C. Anderson,
M.J. Brush, and J. Shen.
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Selected Publications
- Brush, M.J., D.K. Steinberg, R.J.
Latour, and R.L. Wetzel. In
review. Analysis of a 17 year
database for nutrients and plankton in Chesapeake
Bay. I. Average annual cycles. Submitted to Estuarine, Coastal and
Shelf Science.
- Brush, M.J. and J.W. Brawley. In review. A revised depth correction for light
• biomass (BZpIo)
models of phytoplankton production.
Submitted to Ecological Modelling.
- Brush, M.J. and S.W. Nixon. In prep. An innovative, hybrid
empirical-mechanistic numerical model for shallow marine
ecosystems. I. Model formulation and calibration.
- Brush, M.J. and S.W. Nixon. In prep. An innovative, hybrid
empirical-mechanistic numerical model for shallow marine
ecosystems. II. Sensitivity analysis, simulation
analysis, and system-level validation.
- Brush, M.J. and S.W. Nixon. 2003. Biomass layering and metabolism in
mats of the macroalga Ulva lactuca
L. Estuaries 26(4A):916-926.
- Brawley, J.W., M.J. Brush, J.N. Kremer, and S.W. Nixon.
2003. Potential
applications of an empirical phytoplankton production model to shallow
water ecosystems. Ecological
Modelling 160(1-2):55-61.
- Latour, R.J., M.J. Brush, and C.F.
Bonzek. 2003. Toward ecosystem-based fisheries
management: strategies for multispecies modeling and associated data
requirements. Fisheries
28(9):10-22.
- Brush, M.J., J.W. Brawley, S.W. Nixon,
and J.N. Kremer. 2002. Modeling phytoplankton
production: problems with the
Eppley curve and an empirical alternative. Marine Ecology Progress Series
238:31-45.
- Brush, M.J. and S.W. Nixon. 2002.
Direct measurements of light attenuation by epiphytes on
eelgrass, Zostera marina
L. Marine Ecology Progress Series
238:73-79.
- Granger, S., M. Brush, B. Buckley, M.
Traber, M. Richardson, and S. W. Nixon.
2000. An assessment of
eutrophication in Greenwich
Bay. Paper No. 1 in: Schwartz, M. (ed.), Restoring Water
Quality in Greenwich
Bay: A Whitepaper Series. Rhode Island
Sea Grant College Program, University
of Rhode Island,
Narragansett, RI.
- Brush, M.J. 1999. Coastal lagoons of the Rhode Island south
shore (map). Rhode
Island Sea Grant College Program, University of Rhode
Island, Narragansett, RI.
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Current Students
Lance Gardner (PhD
student), The structural role of
submerged aquatic vegetation in nutrient and particulate removal processes,
funded by Virginia Environmental Endowment
Sam Lake
(MS student), Modeling hypoxia dynamics
in the York River estuary (in development),
funded by VIMS Chesapeake Bay Initiative
Juliette Poleto
(MS student, co-advised with Dr. Iris Anderson), Measuring system metabolism as a response to nutrient enrichment in
temperate coastal lagoons (see also report
on modeling nitrogen loads to Gargathy Bay, VA Eastern Shore), funded by
VCR LTER and other sources
Heather Wiseman (MS
student), Development of a shallow
water ecosystem model for the New River
estuary, NC (in development), funded by DCERP project
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- MSCI 502L – Estuarine
and Coastal Processes Research (co-instructor with Dr. Jesse McNinch)
- MSCI 649 – Modeling
Biological and Ecological Systems (co-instructor with Dr. Robert Latour)
- MSCI 698 – Bayesian
Statistics (Fall 2006)
- MSCI 698 – Independent
Study in Ecosystem Modeling (Spring 2006)
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Faculty and Student
Awards
- Senior Fellow, Coastal
Institute, University
of Rhode Island,
2003 - present
- Coastal Institute Fellowship,
Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode
Island, 1998
- Ketchum Award for best
graduate student oral presentation, New England Estuarine Research
Society, 1998
- Selected participant,
National Research Council Fifty Years of Ocean Discovery Symposium, 1998
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Professional Memberships
- American Geophysical Union
- American Society of Limnology
and Oceanography
- Atlantic Estuarine Research
Society
- Estuarine Research Federation
- International Society of
Ecological Modelling
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Collaborative and
Interdisciplinary Efforts
- Modeling the competition
between phytoplankton, macroalge, and eelgrass in shallow marine
ecosystems, with Carol Thornber and Scott Nixon (URI).
- Analysis of upwelling on the
inner Mid-Atlantic continental shelf and the potential of upwelled water
to intrude into lower Chesapeake Bay,
with Harry Wang (VIMS).
- Exploring the mechanistic
basis of the empirical light · biomass models of phytoplankton production using
allometric scaling laws and the Metabolic Theory of Ecology, with Lora
Harris (MBL) and Scott Nixon (URI).
- Analysis of Chesapeake Bay
Program water quality and living resource monitoring data, 1985-2005,
with Deborah Steinberg, Robert Latour, Larry Haas, and Richard Wetzel
(VIMS).
- Measurement of water column metabolism, benthic
fluxes, and high frequency time series in the Lynnhaven River, VA.
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“Each day as the sun rises and retires the beautiful green bays
like great creatures breathe in and out.”
- Howard T. Odum (1956)
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