James W. Nybakken is a professor of biological sciences at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, a consortium operation of seven of the California State Universities. His research interests are in the feeding ecology of certain groups of predatory marine gastropod molluscs. Dr. Nybakken is a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and has served as an officer in five scientific societies.
Mark D. Bertness is the chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University, where he has taught for 25 years. His areas of expertise include the ecology and conservation of natural shoreline communities, as well as salt-marsh and rocky-shore ecology and conservation, which he has studied extensively in South America. Dr. Bertness earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1979.