Jonah Morreale (Ph.D. Student) – As a new Ph.D. student in the Peterson lab, my planned research will focus on the spatial ecology of breeding horseshoe crabs in the bays around Long Island.
After getting my BS in Marine Biology from Cornell University in 2017 (and a short stint working with salmon in Alaska), I spent several years working as a research tech and boat captain for the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER. The systems there contained barrier islands and shallow eelgrass bays very similar to our own here on Long Island, and I got great experience incorporating GIS components with long-term surveys of the marine community.
This summer, I will begin surveying our own bays to examine invertebrate populations and habitat suitability.