Marine and Intertidal Ecology

Dr. Deborah Dexter

Professor of Biology
Member: CMI; Ecology

Dr. Dexter's research is focused on intertidal sandy beaches. Her major research goal is to understand how communities are structured, to determine the pattern in nature, using coastal communities, especially sandy beaches as the model. She is also interested in what factors influence changes in community structure, seasonality, zonation, and composition of sandy beach fauna over a wide geographical range. Other research areas include the response of the benthic invertebrate community of Mission Bay to an invasive mussel over the past 25 years, and the ecology of invertebrates in the Salton Sea.

Graduate Students:

South Life Sciences 341 619-594-5645

Dr. Dexter is no longer accepting graduate students.

Recent M.S. degrees

Jonathan J. Ball. 1999. Growth, survival, reproduction, and demography of the chiton Stenoplax conspicua.

Nicholas Buhbe. 1997. The Life History of the Spirorbid Polychaete Cerceis amoricanum, and the Effects of Season and Tides on the Allometry of Reproduction.

Paul. M. Detwiler. 1996. Demography, growth, mortality and resource allocation in the white sea urchin Lytechinus pictus

N. Scott Rugh 1996. The effect of wave shock and lowered salinity on the distribution and relative abundance of the sibling species Littorina scutulata and Littorina plena (Gastropoda: Prosobranchia)

Dr. Dexter's Recent Publications

1996. Tropical sandy beach communities of Phuket Island, Thailand. Phuket Marine Biological Center Research Bulletin. 61:1-28.

1995. Salinity tolerance of Cletocamptus deitersi (Richard 1897) and its presence in the Salton Sea.Bull. Southern. California Acad. Sci. 92(2): 169-171.

1993. Salinity tolerance of the copepod Apocyclops , a key food chain organism in the Salton Sea, California. Hydrobiologia 267:203-297.

1992. Sandy beach community structure: the role of exposure and latitude. Journal of Biogeography. 19:59-66.

1990. The effect of exposure and seasonality on sandy beach community structure in Portugal. Ciencias Biologica 10: 31-50.

1989. The sandy beach fauna of Egypt. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. 29: 261-271

Mailing address:
Department of Biology
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-4614
Office: Life Sciences South 352
Telephone: (619) 594-6379
FAX: (619) 594-5676
email: ddexter@sunstroke.sdsu.edu

The information on this page represents that of Dr. Deborah Dexter and not necessarily that of San Diego State University. Dr. Dexter takes full responsibility for the information presented.