Research Interests

My group is involved in developing a tool to assess wetlands and other aquatic ecosystems. We sample adult insect assemblages with light traps, measure horizontal and vertical structure of the plant communities, plant community composition, and chemical and physical variables. We then use descriptive statistical techniques to relate patterns in insect assemblages to wetland environments.
 

Personal Statement

In the late 1980s, I worked for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Natural Areas and Preserves to characterize Ohio plant communities in two Ohio counties. I worked to develop a new sampling methodology used by ODNR to acquire baseline data for Ohio's wetland plant communities.  Wetlands are sometimes difficult to characterize: they are often difficult to access, fragile, and possess unusual plant dispersions. Interest by various agencies concerned with the preservation of wetlands (The Nature Conservancy and Ohio Department of Natural Resources) has prompted me to become involved with several other scientists who were interested in the sampling difficulties associated with wetlands. Together we tested various sampling methodologies in wetlands located in several states and in Canada using both computer simulation and field work. During the course of this work we collected baseline data on the plant communities of many wetlands against which future changes to these communities can be compared.

The biological and hydrological importance of wetlands is slowly working its way into public awareness and preservation efforts have increased. Attention is now being turned to the quality of these vanishing areas: What roles do wetlands play? Can man-made wetlands replace natural ones?

My doctoral research  focused on the functional aspects of a Lake Erie coastal wetland, Sandusky Bay. Specifically, I was interested in how phosphorus, an essential nutrient, moves into and is biologically transformed within the bay.  This project  helped us and other workers to determine how and under what conditions phosphorus "switched" planktonic communities from algal dominated to those that were dominated by bacteria: in other words, how the foodweb of Lake Erie itself was structured. In this work, I measure basic limnological variables such as light intensity, temperature, conductivity, alkalinity, chloride concentration, pH, chlorophyll concentration, Secchi depth, dissolved oxygen concentration, turbidity, and the concentration of various phosphorus fractions (TP, PP, TSP, SRP). I also use radiometric tracers (radioactive compounds, such as 32P, 3H-Glucose, 32P-ATP, 14C-CO2, etc.) to measure the fluxes between algal, bacterial, and zooplankton components of the foodweb. I found that in Sandusky Bay bacteria were more important in taking up phosphorus than algae.  Therefore, bacteria play an important role in the biological transformation of phosphorus in Sandusky Bay.

Currently, my research teams are collecting insects and vegetation data from various types of wetlands in several regions across the US (the Big Thicket in east Texas, Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas, Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve in Ohio, in Peatlands, natural and man-made wetlands in northeastern Ohio, and in a coastal watershed in Oregon).  I am interested to learn if there are characteristic insect communities at different types of wetlands and what factors may act to structure the insect communities.  We are currently looking at course taxonomic groupings of insects (Order Level) and at genus and species level groups of Caddisflies, Mayflies and Stoneflies.  The use of order level data allows us to compare patterns across large geographic areas.  Furthermore, we can train volunteers to identify insect orders quickly. Our results have been promising. We have found that we can distinguish between various types of wetlands using order-level insect data and that these patterns seem to be related to the structure of wetland vegetation.  We are planning a series of studies that will attempt to relate patterns in hydrology and water chemistry to insect assemblages.

Recent Papers