How do marine organisms respond to disturbance?

I've tackled this question a couple of ways. During my Masters' at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I focused on seagrass response to physical disturbance and designing restoration alternatives that incorporated bivalve facilitation to enhance seagrass recovery from these disturbances. Now as a PhD student at Clemson University, I am looking at the stress responses of bivalves and other organisms exposed to radionuclides. This work will provide information on the effects of new and legacy radioactive waste on estuarine ecosystems and develop methods of using bivalves as bioindicators of ecosystem health.