The Denny Lab

email: mach @ stanford.edu

Life on wave-swept shores involves the equivalent of hurricane forces every few seconds, as waves crash over intertidal rocks. Katie Mach studies how these forces shape the lives and deaths of one type of intertidal denizen, seaweeds. In the lab and in the field, now with the help of the fearless and brilliant lab technician, Katie focuses in on one way seaweeds tatter and tear in waves: fatigue. Repeated forces, from wave after wave, can cause damage to accumulate in seaweeds through the process of fatigue. Katie pairs engineering techniques with measurements of waves and seaweeds to answer the burning question probably keeping you up at night, How exactly do seaweeds break? Allowing novel ecological predictions, her findings create a mechanistic link between the physical environment and biology of the shallow ocean.

Katie joined the Denny Lab as a graduate student after a year as a technician in the lab. She received her A.B. degree in biology at Harvard and, as an undergraduate, realized her love for quirky stations by the sea at Shoals Marine Laboratory, ME.

Publications:

Mach, K. J. (2009). Mechanical and biological consequences of repetitive loading: crack initiation and fatigue failure in the red macroalga Mazzaella. Journal of Experimental Biology 212: 961-976.

Mach, K. J., Nelson, D. V., and Denny, M. W. (2007). Review. Techniques for predicting the lifetimes of wave-swept macroalgae: a primer on fracture mechanics and crack growth. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 2213-2230.

Mach, K. J., Hale, B. B., Denny, M. W., and Nelson, D. V. (2007). Death by small forces: a fracture and fatigue analysis of wave-swept macroalgae. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 2231-2243.

(The above articles were featured in Inside JEB: Blackburn, L.(2007). Seaweeds crack up. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: i-ii.)

Harley, C. D. G., Denny, M. W., Mach, K. J., and Miller, L. P. (2009). Thermal stress and morphological adaptations in limpets. Functional Ecology 23: 292-301.

Miller, L. P., O'Donnell, M. J., and Mach, K. J. (2007). Dislodged but not dead: survivorship of a high intertidal snail following wave dislodgement. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 87: 735-739.

Ellis, J. C., Shulman, M. J., Jessop, H., Suomala, R., Morris, S. R., Seng, V., Wagner, M., and Mach, K. (2007). Impact of Raccoons on breeding success in large colonies of Great Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls. Waterbirds 30: 375-383.