FIU biology professor protects marine and terrestrial environments

On an average workday, biology assistant professor Deron Burkepile might be scuba diving in Key Largo or observing exotic animals in grassland communities in South Africa.

Burkepile, a field ecologist, explores how humans impact marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and what we can do to mitigate any resulting damage.

He spends most of his time studying what happens when certain species of herbivorous fish which eat seaweed are removed from coral reefs in the Caribbean due to overfishing. If the seaweed grows unchecked, this could endanger coral reefs and populations of fishes that rely on the reefs as shelters and habitats.

“If the corals – which are what we call the foundation species of these ecosystems – are killed, then whole reefs will collapse and these ecosystems will not exist,” Burkepile explained.

On his scuba diving expeditions, Burkepile collects different kinds of seaweed and sets them in front of video cameras, which he anchors to the reef. Then he monitors the feeding patterns of the fish.

“I’m trying to understand the differences in the diet of these fish and their functional roles in the ecosystem,” said Burkepile. “If one of the seaweed-eating fish species disappears, will other fish pick up the job that the first species was doing? Or do you essentially lose that job when you lose the species?”

Sometimes he does his underwater research in the Aquarius – a 40-foot underwater laboratory similar to a stationary submarine that’s located just off Key Largo. Burkepile and a team of scientists and habitat technicians can live underwater for 10 days at a time and work on the reef for up to nine hours a day in this pressurized, self-contained environment.

On the right: Aquarius Laboratory; on the left: Todd Barsby and Deron Burkepile at the NE fill station. (photo by Alex Chequer)

Three or four weeks a year, Burkepile is off to Kruger National Park in South Africa, where he spent two years as a post-doctoral scientist before joining FIU. He is studying what happens to the ecosystems of grassland communities when overhunting and poaching put different groups of large herbivores such as elephants, wildebeest and impala at risk.

Burkepile constructs enclosures that keep out elephants, wildebeest and other large animals, and let other animals through, such as smaller impala and warthogs. He monitors how vegetation changes inside the enclosure and the levels of different nutrients in the soil to understand how the loss of the larger animals would impact the ecosystem.

“I love my job because I get to indulge my passion for nature and natural history while helping to understand and protect important ecosystems,” Burkepile said.