Interests

Dr Alexander Mustard's main marine science interest is marine ecology; which is, in general, studying how marine plants and animals interact with the ocean environment and each other. "The watery world is so different from our own, that the role it plays in the lives of marine animals is often a surprise to us terrestrial animals!".

At work Alexander's research concerns the role that the open ocean environment plays in the lives of plankton. "The open ocean is the largest ecosystem on our planet, it provides us with food but more importantly it dominates how the whole world works as a ecosystem. Zooplankton are among the most numerous multicellular animals on the planet and it is crucial to study how they live their lives. " A particular interest is how eddies impact on plankton: eddies are the watery equivalent of atmospheric weather systems - anticyclones and cyclones spun up by the rotation of the planet. But that is where the similarity ends. We see atmospheric eddies every day on weather maps, a 1000km across and usually passing over us in a couple of days. Because seawater is denser than air the anticyclones and cyclones in the ocean are smaller and move more slowly - 10-100km across and moving along over months. To most life on land, individual weather systems are of little consequence - a tree, a cow or an insect generally live through many weather systems, and it is climatic and seasonal changes that are of more ecological importance to them. The plants and animals of the plankton don't live as long, many living for days to months, timescales that coincide with the ocean's weather. In other words if you are a plankton you could end up having a good weather life or a bad weather life! These are the areas of marine ecology that fascinate me - areas where the ocean differs so dramatically from land.

Away from the Laboratory, Alexander is fascinated by the ecology of coral reefs. He is particularly interested in documenting and photographing the rarely witnessed behaviours of the creatures that live there. For example, in September 2003 he predicted, saw and photographed mass coral spawning on the reefs of Grand Cayman for the first time. The prediction he made from his desk in Southampton was 3 minutes out!