One of my overall interests has been ecological risk in urban environments, the Jersey Shore, and at DOE sites. Developing bioindicators is critical to assessing ecological health determining remediation and restorations, evaluating restoration, and determining risk. Since there are literally millions of individual species in ecosystems, it is critical be able to find species that will indicate something about the health and well-being of ecosystems. Often these are top-level predators within their systems, such as Pine Snakes, sharks, seabirds, raptors, or wolves. However, they can also be species that are particularly at risk, such as bottom dwelling fish in environments where the sediment at the bottoms of lakes or rivers are polluted.
