Welcome to the homepage for Dr. Dan Okamoto’s research group in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University.

We study population dynamics with a focus on exploited species of importance to coastal communities. We are broadly interested in how environment and species interactions regulate fluctuations in population dynamics, physiology, and vital rates (i.e., recruitment and connectivity, metabolism, energy budgets, development, growth, reproduction & mortality), and how such information can lead to more robust, equitable, and just natural resource management.  Our research integrates mathematical modeling, Bayesian statistical analysis, field data, & laboratory experiments.

We collaborate with local fishing and Indigenous communities with aims to design and conduct field-based research and analyses that bolster equity and sustainability in the process of science and natural resource management. Focal research taxa include sea urchins, macroalgae, forage fish, reef fish and abalone. Core research locations include the oceans surrounding the Great Bear Rainforest (British Columbia), the Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area (British Columbia), southeast Alaska, and coastal California.

Collaborator organizations include the Council of Haida Nation, Gwaii Haanas and Parks Canada, California Department of Fish and Wildlife at the Bodega Marine Lab, the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department, the Hakai Institute, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, the Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance, the Santa Barbara Coastal Long-term Ecological Research Program, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and ResNet.

Our work is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, Parks Canada and the Council of Haida Nation, the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation, and Florida State University in addition to many contributions from other sources.

Nate Spindel is a PhD student in Biological Science at FSU. He received his undergraduate degree from UCSB, and worked as a researcher and AAUS diver for PISCO, the Moorea Coral Reef LTER, and the UCSB SONGS monitoring program prior to migrating to FSU to work on kelp forest ecosystems and abalone population dynamics in beautiful British Columbia. Find him on twitter!
Sampling sea urchins on Calvert Island. Photo: Jenn Burt.
Markus Thompson surveying herring eggs at 90′ depth. Spiller Channel, Canada. Photo: T. Blaine.
Working with Heiltsuk fisherman Keith Gladstone during a fisheries workshop in Bella Bella.

  We are fans of innovative, if not unorthodox, ways of solving problems…

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