My research is driven by the belief that we can sustainably manage living marine resources and that population and early life history ecology can contribute to this process. Larval dispersal and connectivity remain as great questions in marine ecology and ones that are critical for management of living marine resources because many marine species and all commercially important invertebrates have larvae that disperse in the water column and are transported from adult habitat. Marine ecology has undergone a paradigm shift in the last several decades, as it is now appreciated that while larvae may spend a long duration in the plankton and can cross ocean basins, it may be more common that larvae are retained near adult populations or migrate in currents that travel far but return larvae to the vicinity of their source population. As we learn more about these early life stages and oceanographic processes, the “vagaries of the plankton” seem less vague and, in fact, appear quite well suited to the marine environment. Although many Alaskan fisheries are healthy, many invertebrate stocks have declined and some are depleted. I believe that knowledge of the early life history will provide essential information for regeneration of these stocks and will provide additional means for assessing population status and fishery management. My research has specifically focused on three crab species, Dungeness crab, snow crab and king crab; and the focus within each species is tailored to the questions of interest and the level of background information for that species.