The Behavioral Ecology Branch employs a multidisciplinary, experimental, and community-based approach to investigate mechanisms that affect recruitment, distribution, and abundance of economically significant marine fishes and invertebrates. The Branch conducts field and laboratory studies on habitat requirements and preferences, predator-prey relationships, movement and migration patterns, reproductive behavior, and other behavioral responses that influence populations of resource species. Emphasis is placed on interactions among managed species, their predators and prey, and environmental parameters such as sediments, macrophytes, water column characteristics, and hydrography. Both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the habitat are explored, and behavioral processes at all stages of animal development are considered. The behavioral norms established in the research serve as baselines against which the effects of environmental perturbations can be measured or predicted.

• Tracking Fish in the Navesink River