Campus Directory

Pronouns He/Him/His

Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Ocean Sciences Department

Title Associate Professor

Affiliation Faculty

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Web Site

Primary Office Location Earth & Marine Sciences

Mail Stop Ocean Sciences

Biography, Education and Training

Professional:

Associate Professor, University of California Santa Cruz, Ocean Sciences Department, 2024 – Present

Associate Professor, Louisiana State University, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, 2020 –2024

Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, 2014 – 2020

Guest Investigator, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2014 – 2024

Adjunct Research Faculty, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2012 –  Present

Academic:

B.S. Marine Biology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2001

Ph.D. Marine Biology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2012

Postdoctoral Scholar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2012-2014

Research Interests

My research interests inlcude stable isotope ecology, foraging and food webs, marine birds and mammals, Antarctic ecology, and coastal wetland ecology.

Selected Publications

See Google Scholar for a complete list of publications.

Loesser, K. B., Powell, C. E., Davis, B., Baustian, M. M., & Polito, M. J. (2024). Stable isotopes reveal that foraging strategy dictates trophic response of salt marsh residents to black mangrove Avicennia germinans range expansion. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 729, 81-97.

Keppeler, F. W., Engel, A. S., Hooper‐Bùi, L. M., López‐Duarte, P. C., Martin, C. W., Olin, J. A., Lamb, K., Polito, M.J., Rabalais, N.N., Roberts, B.R., & Jensen, O. P. (2024). Coastal wetland restoration through the lens of Odum's theory of ecosystem development. Restoration Ecology, 32(3), e14072.

Hill, S. L., Atkinson, A., Arata, J. A., Belcher, A., Nash, S. B., Bernard, K. S., ... Polito, M.J.,... & Yang, G. (2024). Observing change in pelagic animals as sampling methods shift: the case of Antarctic krill. Frontiers in Marine Science, 11, 1307402.

Michelson, C. I., Polito, M. J., Wunder, M. B., Emslie, S. D., McCarthy, M. D., Patterson, W. P., & McMahon, K. W. (2023). Holocene climate change shifted Southern Ocean biogeochemical cycling and predator trophic dynamics. Limnology and Oceanography, 68(12), 2642-2653.

Keppeler, F. W., Junker, J. R., Shaw, M. J., Alford, S. B., Engel, A. S., Hooper‐Bùi, L. M., Jensen, O.P, Lamb, K., López-Duarte, P.C., Martin, C.W., McDonald, A.M., Olin, J.A., Paterson, A.T., Polito, M.J., Rabalais, N.N., Roberts, B.R., Rossi, R.E, and Swenson, E. M. (2023). Can biodiversity of preexisting and created salt marshes match across scales? An assessment from microbes to predators. Ecosphere, 14(3), e4461.

Rosciano, N. G., Stahl, A. R., & Polito, M. J. (2023). Sulfur isotopic discrimination factors differ among avian tissues and diets: Insights from a case study in Gentoo Penguins. Ornithology, 140(3), ukad013.

Polito, M. J., Robinson, B., Warzybok, P., & Bradley, R. W. (2022). Population Dynamics and Resource Availability Drive Seasonal Shifts in the Consumptive and Competitive Impacts of Introduced House Mice (Mus musculus) on an Island Ecosystem. PeerJ 10:e13904

McMahon, K. W., Michelson, C. I., Hart, T., McCarthy, M. D., Patterson, W. P., Polito, M. J. (2019). Divergent trophic responses of sympatric penguin species to historic anthropogenic exploitation and recent climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(51), 25721-25727.

Polito, M. J., Trivelpiece, W. Z., Reiss, C. S., Trivelpiece, S. G., Hinke, J. T., Patterson, W. P., and Emslie, S. D. (2019). Intraspecific variation in a dominant prey species can bias marine predator dietary estimates derived from stable isotope analysis. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods, 17(4), 292-303.

Polito, M. J., Hinke, J. T., Hart, T., Santos, M., Houghton, L. A., Thorrold, S. R. (2017). Stable isotope analyses of feather amino acids identify penguin migration strategies at ocean basin scales. Biology Letters, 13(8), 20170241.

McCann, M. J., Able, K. W., Christian, R. R., Fodrie, F. J., Jenson, O. P., Johnson, J. J., Lopez-Duarte, P. C., Martin, C. W., Olin, J. A., Polito, M. J., Roberts, B. J., Zeigler, S. L. (2016). Key taxa in food web responses to stressors: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 15(3), 142-149.