Death By Small Forces:
By Katie Mach      Awards: Miller, Giese, Myers

Imagine the repeated booms and flying spray of ocean waves smashing onshore during a storm. Even the smallest of these waves strikes shore with the force of hurricane winds. Nonetheless, nearshore environments brim with life packed as densely as in a rainforest. In many coastal ecosystems, seaweeds, like rainforest canopy, provide vital habitat and food.

My research focuses on how such seaweeds survive--and thrive--on wave-swept shores despite repeated buffeting by waves. In the laboratory, I have used engineering techniques to measure seaweed breakage in ways that simulate repeated loading by breaking waves. Most recently, I have turned to ecological techniques to measure wave forces and seaweed breakage in the field and thereby to evaluate my breakage models.

By creating engineering models of seaweed breakage, I determine how waves limit where seaweeds can grow. Then, incorporating changing oceanic conditions into my models, I can assess patterns of breakage and survival and ultimately the sustainability of marine habitats in future oceans.

Thanks to generous funding through Stanford University and Hopkins Marine Station I have been able to pursue and publish this research and present my results at a number of conferences.