Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center

20th anniversary seminar series

 

Friday, October 16, 2009

Dr. Deborah Clark, Research Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis

E-mail: dbclark@sloth.ots.ac.cr

Research Interests

Carbon stores and fluxes in tropical forests; responses of tropical forests to changing climate and atmospheric composition, and their role in the global carbon cycle; tropical forest nutrient cycling; population ecology, life history diversity, and ecophysiology of tropical rain forest canopy trees; edaphic and human influences on the landscape distribution of tropical rain forest trees.

Web page: http://www.umsl.edu/~biology/faculty/deborahclark.html

 

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Dr. Kay Holekamp, Professor, Department of Zoology, Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior, Michigan State University

E-mail: holekamp@msu.edu

Research Interests

Research focuses on mammalian behavioral development and its physiological substrates.  Current projects on hyena include investigating how social, ecological, and endocrine variables interact during an individual's early development to influence its subsequent behavior and its reproductive success as an adult.

Web page: http://hyenas.zoology.msu.edu/

 

Wednesday, April 7 2010

Dr. David Inouye, Professor and Director, CONS program, Department of Biology, University of Maryland

E-mail: Inouye@umd.edu

Research Interests

Dr. Inouye has worked with bumblebees, euglossine bees, pollinating flies, tephritid flies, hummingbirds, and wild flowers, on topics including pollination biology, flowering phenology, plant demography, and plant-animal interactions such as ant-plant mutualisms, nectar robbing, and seed predation.  He has worked in Australia, Austria, Central America, and Colorado, where he has spent summer field seasons since 1971 at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL).  His long-term studies of flowering phenology and plant demography are being used now to provide insights into the effects of climate change at high altitudes.

Web page: http://www.life.umd.edu/biology/faculty/inouye/inouye2.htm

 

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Dr. Stephen Hubbell, Distinguished Research Professor at University of Georgia, Senior Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

E-mail: shubbell@plantbio.uga.edu

Research Interests

Internationally renowned ecologist with research focused on tropical rainforests and theoretical ecology; tropical plant ecology, plant-animal interactions.  Co-founder and board member of the Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS), which manages a global network of permanent tropical forest research plots.

Web page: http://www.plantbio.uga.edu/~shubbell/Webpages/Members/steve_wp.htm


 

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Dr. Anthony R.E. Sinclair

Professor, University of British Columbia

E-mail: sinclair@zoology.ubc.ca

Research Interests

Testing formal models in ecosystem dynamics using large-scale natural or semi-natural experiments.  Predator Sensitive Foraging: interaction of predation and food resources on foraging behavior of animals, studies compared the mortality of animals in food rich with food poor conditions using data accumulated over 27 years and demonstrated that mortality conformed to predictions of Predator Sensitive Foraging theory.  Migration Systems: Long distance annual movements (migrations) are characteristic of many mammal and bird species. Studies of the migrations of large mammals in Serengeti demonstrated both the cause and function of migration.  The Regulation of Populations: Mechanisms that lead to the regulation of populations, focusing on the large mammals of Africa.

Web page: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/sinclair

 

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Dr. Charles J. Krebs, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia

E-mail: krebs@zoology.ubc.ca

Research Interests

Many vole and lemming populations fluctuate cyclically, reaching peak populations every 3-4 years.  Since 1959 Krebs has investigated what drives these cycles.  Dennis Chitty suggested in 1960 that cyclic changes in social behavior and population genetics might hold the key to understanding why cycles occur in so many different species of voles in such a variety of habitats.  Krebs and his students have done a series of field experiments on the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), Townsend's vole (Microtus townsendii), and the creeping vole (Microtus oregoni) around Vancouver since 1971 to see what factors are important in causing populations to fluctuate.  The dominant theme that has emerged is that aggressive behavior, particularly of breeding females, is a major cause of juvenile losses in rodents.  In 1976 Krebs began studies on the ten-year cycle of snowshoe hares at Kluane Lake.

Web page: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/krebs

 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Dr. Ellen Ketterson, Distinguished Professor, Gender Studies, Cognitive Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington

E-mail: ketterso@indiana.edu

Research Interests

Research has focused on: behavioral, physiological, and evolutionary ecology; hormones and behavior; avian biology, mating systems and parental care; physiological basis of trade-offs in life histories; adaptation and constraint; avian migration.  Study animal is the dark-eyed junco.

Web page: http://www.bio.indiana.edu/facultyresearch/faculty/ketterson.html

 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Dr. Colin Chapman, Professor of Zoology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida

E-mail: cachapman@ufl.edu

Research Interests

Primary research interests are in primates but field research is much broader. The primates in the Kibale National Park in Uganda are found in the highest densities ever recorded.  Chapman studies how primates interact with their environment and what those interactions could mean for the future of the forests.  He is currently concentrating on the role fruit-eating primates have in seed dispersal and forest regeneration.

Web page: http://apps.research.ufl.edu/publications/ufrfprofessors/ufrfprofessorview.cfm