B.F.D. Runk Professor (Biology), Professor of Environmental Sciences and Director; Ph.D. University of Michigan 1971.

Population and community ecology, ecological genetics, vertebrate biology.

Gilmer 238
434-982-5486
hmw3q@virginia.edu

My research takes an evolutionary approach to ecological questions. My areas of interest are population and community ecology and the application of population ecology to issues in conservation. I have worked extensively with experimental studies of food webs in temporary ponds and the ecological genetics of paedomorphosis in salamanders. My field-work is now mostly at Mountain Lake Biological Station (www.virginia.edu/~mtlake), a facility of the Department of Biology at 1200 m elevation in the Allegheny Mountains of Southwestern Virginia. Current studies are a broad approach to understanding the ecological interactions across ecotones. My colleagues and I are studying interactions between species of salamanders that breed in streams and forage on land and species that have direct development and spend their entire life away from freely flowing water. Natural history observations are used to design rigorous experimental studies in arrays of experimental streams and laboratory studies of behavioral mechanisms of interactions among species.

Two long-term projects at Mountain Lake are an epidemiological study of the American Chestnut and the role of disease in sex determination in Striped Maple. These are now being set in a larger context of land-use history and forest dynamics of the area. My wife, a plant community ecologist, and I now spend our summers working on this project, largely with undergraduate students.

A recent project was a large study of the spatial ecology of amphibians that breed in a complex of sinkhole ponds in the Shenandoah Valley. Mark-recapture studies of four species are combined with studies of hydrology, water chemistry and vegetation to account for population dynamics, pond characteristics, and landscape features. One goal was to understand the importance of movements between populations in making conservation decisions. The doctoral student, Don Church that did most of the work, is now employed at Conservation International doing world-wide work on declining amphibians. The post-doc Larissa Bailey is about to move from the Wildlife Research Center of the USGS to a faculty position at Colorado State as a biometrician.

Homepage : http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/wilbur/