Expertise
My research combines laboratory experiments, field studies and modeling techniques to investigate ecological issues in aquatic systems. My primary focus has been on aquatic invertebrates, phytoplankton, and macrophytes, but research in my lab group has included studies of population, community, and ecosystem level questions from both energetic and nutrient cycling perspectives. My lab group's current research focuses on the following four areas:
- (1) Aquatic 'food quality' -- how differences in elemental and biochemical content of primary producers affects: growth of herbivores, growth of carnivores, community composition, and flow of essential compounds and energy through aquatic food webs
- (a) 'Stoichiometry' Effects of nutrients and light on phytoplankton nutrient content
- Implications for zooplankton community composition
- Effects of stoichiometry on trophic transfer efficiency
- Effects of exotic species and nutrient remediation on stoichiometry in lakes
- (b) Essential Compounds Effects of essential fatty acids on trophic transfer efficiency
- Use of essential fatty acids as tracers of diet in natural and constructed food webs
- Interaction of stoichiometry, food quality and toxicant effects on organisms
- (2) Plankton dispersal and invasive species
- Predatory invertebrates
- Dreissenid molluscs (zebra and quagga mussels)
- Aquatic plants
- Movement of invasives among inland lakes
- Effects of invasive species on native species, diversity and ecosystem properties
- Natural and human-mediated zooplankton dispersal
- (3) Harmful algal blooms and their effects
- (4) Climate change effects on aquatic systems, including winter limnology
Nutrient and exotic species effects on aquatic ecosystems, ecological stoichiometry, aquatic community and ecosystem ecology, bioenergetics, nutrient cycling, lower food web studies, great lakes, finger lakes, plankton, limnology, aquatic ecology, biogeochemistry, invasive species, winter limnology, harmful algal blooms, macrophytes, road salt.