Taiwan is one of the large islands in the West Pacific island group. Under the influence of the Kuroshio current, the biodiversity of the W. Pacific coastal habitat is extremely high. In the W. Pacific island group, Taiwan appears to be a 'stepping stone' to transfer the biodiversity of organisms from the Asian mainland continents to the outlying island group.
Common intertidal organisms have life cycles comprise of planktonic larval and a benthic adult phase. As a result, the biodiversity of intertidal can be affected by the supply of larvae, settlement and subsequent recruitment into the adult population. Studying the patterns and processes of intertidal community dynamics will be, therefore, essential to conserve the Taiwan intertidal biodiversity. Among the intertidal assemblages, barnacles are ideal representative organisms to study population ecology as they are the major space occupier and have wide geographical distribution.
The research interests of the Coastal Ecology Laboratory are:
1) to study the patterns and processes governing the intertidal
ecology
2) to investigate the supply side ecology of intertidal
communities (especially barnacles) and its effect on the subsequent adult
population dynamics and
3) to reveal the phylogeography of NW Pacific intertidal communities
Books authored by Dr Benny Chan
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