A 24-year-old University of South Florida doctoral student wants to better understand how communities of prey fish in Gulf Coast estuaries fluctuate—in abundance and species composition, and by habitat type. Jonathan Peake Jonathan Peake holds a 20-inch gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) in the fish ecology lab at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science. He collected the fish in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for a study of fish production in natural and artificial reefs. Courtesy of Jonathan Peake To accomplish that, Peake is combing through decades of data on these populations, also known as forage fish, in an effort he hopes also will explain how environmental events such as cold snaps, habitat alterations, and red tide algal blooms affect prey communities.