I’m a marine ecologist working on the population dynamics of harvested species and the habitats that support them. My work spans stage-structured modeling of California spiny lobster under Marine Protected Area and slot-limit scenarios, fishery-independent surveys across long-term California monitoring programs, and experimental coral biology. I’m most interested in making monitoring data more useful for stock assessment and spatial management.
Publications ORCID Google Scholar
Spatially explicit, female-only stage-structured model across CDFW fishing blocks, asking how many large females the fishery actually lands and whether current assessment methods could detect them. Groundwork for quantifying the ecological value of protecting large individuals.
Island-wide Porites genotyping survey assigning colonies to mitochondrial lineages, plus a 2×2 factorial experiment testing whether secondary wounding (microwounding) and algae removal reactivate stalled tissue regeneration in corals whose recovery has stalled mid-healing.
First record of a nicothoid egg predator (Choniosphaera sp.) infesting cancrid crabs anywhere in the Eastern Pacific, combining aquarium rearing of ovigerous hosts with brood stage intensity modeling to estimate its threat to a data poor rock crab fishery. Published in Ecology (2025). PDF
Two strands on what reaches the floor of the Southern California Bight: sediment coring over the San Pedro Basin DDT disposal site, feeding a published waste inventory in Environmental Science and Technology (2025), and a Coastal Fund project on whether the ocean’s own alkane cycle primes microbes to absorb petroleum. PDF
Salt marsh fish and invertebrate monitoring at Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve and Point Mugu Lagoon, using seine and trap surveys, species identification to lowest practical taxon, and laboratory processing supporting long term restoration reporting.
Standardized underwater benthic and fish visual surveys across Northern Channel Islands marine protected areas for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, tracking how protected reefs differ from fished ones.
Fishery independent hook and line surveys with volunteer anglers through the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program, evaluating nearshore fish stocks inside marine protected areas and at paired sites open to fishing.
Pacific sardine and predator dynamics under three harvest rules: proportional harvest, biomass closure threshold, and adaptive management, with a Sobol analysis separating ecological from management drivers.
Mapping candidate integrated multi trophic aquaculture areas across the U.S. West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone from sea surface temperature, bathymetry, and species thermal and depth tolerances.
Binary logistic regression distinguishing two Florida palmetto species from morphology, comparing standard and regularised models on accuracy, ROC AUC, and calibration across ten fold cross validation.
Threshold based forest growth as a piecewise ordinary differential equation, with variance based sensitivity analysis identifying which parameters drive maximum carbon stock under uncertainty.
Detecting blackout extent from night lights imagery and joining tract level census data to quantify socioeconomic disparities in how quickly different Houston neighbourhoods regained power.
A published yield transfer function wrapped in a profit model, then tested for parameter uncertainty to identify which assumptions drive the outcome across plausible climate scenarios.
Designed the group’s website around a citizen scientist photo identification workflow, and built diver facing guidance on manta etiquette and catalog support for the Revillagigedo oceanic manta population.
Short promotional film for the Blüedot Institute Climate Leadership Program, run with the Bren School. Filmed and directed high school students on location on Santa Cruz Island, then edited the piece.
Orli, Jaden E., Sophia M. Lecuona, Gabrielle O. Plewe, Carson N. Gadler, Armand M. Kuris, Danny Tang, and Zoe L. Zilz. 2025. “Discovery of an Unidentified Species of Nicothoid Copepod Infesting Cancrid Crabs in Santa Barbara, California.” Ecology 106(12): e70263. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70263 · Cover Image: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70285 PDF
Zilz, Zoe L., Emily Hascall, Athena DiBartolo, Delén Flores, Sophie Cameron, Orli, Jaden E., and Armand M. Kuris. 2026. “A Parasite-inclusive Food Web for the California Rocky Intertidal Zone.” Scientific Data. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07259-3 PDF
Wu, Mong Sin Christine, Jacob T. Schmidt, Hailie E. Kittner, Earth 182B Group, and David L. Valentine. 2025. “Geospatial and Temporal Inventory for Industrial DDT Waste Disposal to a Deep Coastal Ocean Environment.” Environmental Science and Technology 59: 20578-20587. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c03851 · Group Author (Earth 182B Group); the consortium includes Orli, Jaden E. PDF
Sailed the March 2023 coring cruise aboard the research vessel Yellowfin that collected the deep coastal sediment this thesis is based on
One circle per author. A filled circle marks my place in the byline; a dashed ring outside the divider means I am credited in the acknowledgments rather than named as an author.
