My research interests centre on the nutritional ecology and evolution of fishes. Most of my research has focused on the biology of marine herbivorous fishes, which I study in both temperate and tropical reef environments. My early work on marine herbivorous fishes involved feeding morphology and diet, and I subsequently became interested in how these fishes digested their algal (seaweed) diet. It became clear that, as in most terrestrial vertebrate herbivores, symbiotic microorganisms inhabiting the posterior intestine played an important role in digestion. Determining how these organisms contribute to the nutrition of host fishes became an important component of my research, and that continues to this day. This involves a large variety of research techniques including diet analysis, nutrient analysis, stable isotope analysis, electron microscopy, histology, growth studies, molecular characterization of gut microbial communities, digestive enzyme studies and short chain fatty acid analysis
