Curriculum in Ecology

Robert Peet

• Professor, Biology
• Chair, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-6942
• Email: peet@unc.edu

• Secondary succession and forest dynamics on the Carolina Piedmont
• EcoInformatics: Analysis of patterns of species co-occurrence in using large databases
• Vegetation of the southeasten U.S.
• Determinants of species diversity of plant communities

Denise Kenney

• Administrative Manager, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-1270
• Email: dkent@unc.edu

Jack Weiss

• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-5930
• Email: jack_weiss@unc.edu

• Applications programming
• Statistical design and consulting
• Mathematical modeling

Courses

• Ecology 562. Statistics for Environmental Scientists
• Ecology 563. Statistical analysis in Ecology and Evolution.

Richard Andrews

• Professor, Ecology
• Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Professor and Chair, Public Policy
• Professor and Fellow, Institute for the Environment
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-5011
• Email: pete_andrews@unc.edu

• U.S. and comparative environmental policy
• Environmental consequences of public policies
• Environmental management by business

Larry Band

• Chair, Geography
• Voit Gilmore Distinguished Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3921
• Email: lband@email.unc.edu

• Hydrologic modeling
• Spatial simulation modeling
• Ecosystem simulation modeling

Todd BenDor

• Assistant Professor, City & Regional Planning
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-4760
• Email: bendor@unc.edu

• Regional simulation modeling of urban growth
• Developer decision-making in wetland mitigation
• Habitat fragmentation
• Dynamic effects of wetland mitigation on no net loss
• Agent-based fisheries modeling

Larry Benninger

• Chair, Geological Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-0699
• Email: lbenning@email.unc.edu

• Carbon cycling in coastal sedimentary environments
• Sediment transport processes in North Carolina coastal environments: estuaries, continental shelf, continental slope
• Storage and mobility of radionuclides and trace elements in nearshore sedimentary environments

Philip Berke

• Director, Center for Sustainable Community Design
• Professor, City and Regional Planning
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-4765
• Email: pberke@email.unc.edu

• Sustainable development and land use planning in New Zealand
• Ecolgoical impacts and theories of urban form
• Natural hazard mitigation in development and developing countries
• State and local land use and environmental policy

Dick Bilsborrow

• Research Professor, Biostatistics
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 966-1738
• Email: richard_bilsborrow@unc.edu

• Population change, land use and deforestation in the Amazon, especially Ecuador
• Migration and environment
• Determinants and consequences of internal and international migration
• Survey design and methods for developing countries
• Multilevel modeling of demographic behavior and land use

John Bruno

• Associate Professor, Marine Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-0263
• Email: john_bruno@unc.edu

• Role of species diversity in driving ecosystem processes
• Metapopulation dynamics and dispersal in coastal plant communities
• Ecology of coral disease
• Effects of global change on coral reef health
• Invasion biology

Joe Carter

• Professor, Geological Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-0685
• Email: clams@email.unc.edu

• Evolutionary studies of molluscan shell microstructure and ecology
• Mineralogical evolution of the Bivalvia
• Modern and fossil endolithic communities
• Coastal Plain biostratigraphy
• Triassic vertebrate paleontology

J. Robert Cox

• Professor, Communication Studies
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-4937
• Email: rcox1@email.unc.edu

• Public participation mechanisms in environmental decision-making
• Environmental public education campaigns
• Impacts of economic globalization on environmental quality

Doug Crawford-Brown

• Professor, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
• Director, Institute for the Environment
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 966-6026
• Email: douglas_crawford-brown@unc.edu

• mathematical theories of radiation and chemical carcinogenesis
• philosophical foundations of environmental risk analysis
• mathematical modeling of biokinetics and dosimetry for environmental pollutants
• applications of risk analysis to environmental policy decisions

Carole Crumley

• Professor, Anthropology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-5527
• Email: crumley@unc.edu

• Historical landscape ecology
• Social, political, and economic elements of land use practice
• Ethnography, ethnohistory, and archaeology of Europe
• Global environmental change

Martin Doyle

• Associate Professor, Geography
• Director, Center for Landscape Change and Health
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3876
• Email: mwdoyle@email.unc.edu

• Fluvial geomorphology, stream ecology
• Dams, impacts of water releases, and dam removal
• Geomorphic controls on nutrient retention and periphyton growth
• Geomorphic evidence of deforestation in ancient Turkey

Barbara Entwisle

• Kenan Professor, Sociology
• Director, Carolina Population Center
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-7003
• Email: entwisle@unc.edu

• Population, environment, and land use in Northeast Thailand
• Social networks and migration
• Linked social and spatial data; confidentiality issues

John Florin

• Associate Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3879
• Email: jflorin@email.unc.edu

• American agriculture
• Cultural geography

Cecil Frost

• Adjunct Faculty, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill
• Coordinator, NC Plant Conservation Program (Ret.)
• NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services

• Phone: (336) 364-1924
• Email: cecil.frost@earthlink.net

• Presettlement fire regimes of the United States
• Methods for mapping presettlement fire regimes
• Methods for reconstructing presettlement vegetation
• Fire relations of rare species
• Using landscape fire ecology for restoration and management of public lands

Patricia Gensel

• Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-6937
• Email: pgensel@bio.unc.edu

• Floristics, ecology, and geography of Paleozoic plants
• Origin and diversification of plant lineages
• Phylogenetic relationships of plant groups

Joel Kingsolver

• William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-6291
• Email: jgking@bio.unc.edu

• Selection and evolution of morphological and physiological plasticity
• Nutrient physiology and evolutionary ecology of feeding and growth in caterpillars
• Patterns of phenotypic selection and fitness surfaces for quantitative traits in natural populations
• Functional morphology and evolutionary ecology of flight and predator escape in butterflies

Chip Konrad

• Associate Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3873
• Email: cek@email.unc.edu

• Relationships between atmospheric patterns (e.g. circulation and moisture) and surface weather events (e.g. heavy rainfall and cold air outbreaks)
• Influences and interactions of physical processes and patterns across scales (i.e. planetary, synoptic, and mesoscale)
• Synoptic patterns and physical processes that lead to precipitation over the southeastern U.S.

Paul Leslie

• Professor, Anthropology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-9878
• Email: pwleslie@unc.edu

• Demography and reproduction: biosocial determinants of fertility; environmental influences on reproductive function; modeling fertility decisions and reproductive strategies
• Population biology/population genetics: interaction among social, demographic, and genetic structures of human populations; modeling complex mating structures
• Sub-Saharan African pastoralism: population-environment interactions; demographic causes and consequences of changing subsistence patterns; cultural and biological responses to environmental fluctuations and uncertainty

Flora Lu

• Assistant Professor, Anthropology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-2060
• Email: Flora@email.unc.edu

• Indigenous peoples, indigenous resource management
• Amazon rainforest, conservation in Ecuador
• Culture change, market integration
• Political ecology, environmental justice

Melinda Meade

• Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3922
• Email: meade@email.unc.edu

• Geographical and ecological study of disease ecology, emerging disease, population pressure.

Charles Mitchell

• Assistant Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-7745
• Email: mitchell@bio.unc.edu

• Joint effects of global change and biological invasions on insect-vectored generalist pathogens.
• The role of pathogens in competition between introduced and native grasses.
• Microbial plant pathogens as modulators of global change.
• Feedbacks between host community structure and pathogen spread.
• Implications for sustainability and conservation.

Aaron Moody

• Associate Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-5303
• Email: aaronm@email.unc.edu

• Ecological and environmental factors controlling the distribution of plant communities
• Patterns of plant species distribution on the California Channel Islands and in the chaparral of the Santa Ynez Mountains
• Temporal dynamics of vegetation productivity in southern California and the role of precipitation in these dynamics

Hans Paerl

• William R. Kenan Professor, Institute of Marine Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (252) 726-6841, ext.133
• Email: hpaerl@email.unc.edu

• Sources of excess nitrogen in river, estuary, and nearshore waters
• Impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition on phytoplankton dynamics
• Environmental controls of algal blooms
• Physiological controls of nitrogen fixation
• Phytoplankton ecophysiological

Sam Pearsall

• Adjunct Faculty, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill
• Director of Science,
• North Carolina Nature Conservancy

• Phone: (919) 403-8558 ext.1022
• Email: sampearsall@tnc.org

• Adaptive management of flows on the lower Roanoke River
• Conservation planning for complex, human-influenced landscapes
• Ecosystem management and resilience in the context of global (e.g., climate) change

Robert Peet

• Professor, Biology
• Chair, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-6942
• Email: peet@unc.edu

• Secondary succession and forest dynamics on the Carolina Piedmont
• EcoInformatics: Analysis of patterns of species co-occurrence in using large databases
• Vegetation of the southeasten U.S.
• Determinants of species diversity of plant communities

Charles 'Pete' Peterson

• Alumni Professor, Institute of Marine Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (252) 726-6841, ext.130
• Email: cpeters@email.unc.edu

• the dynamics of the Sargassum ecosystem in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina
• organizational processes in the Northern Gulf of Alaska ecosystem
• causes of community patterns in space and time at deep-sea hydrothermal vents
• the ecosystem functions of oyster reef habitat, particularly in North Carolina's estuarine and coastal waters
• methods for expanding the scientific basis for ecosystem management in the coastal zone

Frederic Pfaender

• Professor, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 966-3842
• Email: gregdad@email.unc.edu

• Biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons by patuxent aquifer microbial communities
• Biodegradation of detergent chemicals in estuarine and near-shore marine environments
• Effect of sorption on the biotransformation of pollutants

David Pfennig

• Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-6958
• Email: dpfennig@email.unc.edu

• Ecological causes of speciation and adaptive radiation
• The role of developmental plasticity in evolution
• Evolution and development of ecologically relevant traits
• Kin selection and the levels of selection in evolution

Karin Pfennig

• Assistant Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-5590
• Email: kpfennig@email.unc.edu

• Behavioral facilitation of population and evolutionary diversification
• Mating behavior and its role in ecological and evolutionary processes
• parasite influence on and evolutionary response to host behaviors and courtship traits

Michael Piehler

• Assistant Professor, Institute of Marine Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill
• Program Head, Estuarine Ecology and Human Health
• UNC Coastal Studies Institute

• Phone: (252) 726-6841 x160
• Email: mpiehler@unc.edu

• Primary productivity and N cycling in the coastal land-water interface
• Estuarine habitat response to rising water levels
• Effects of tidal flow N cycling and primary productivity in coastal streams
• Nutrient cycling and primary productivity in shallow lakes

Johnny Randall

• Adjunct Faculty, Ecology
• Asst. Dir. for Conservation, North Carolina Botanical Garden
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-0522
• Email: jrandall@unc.edu

• Invasive exotic plant species ecology
• Rare plant biology
• Plant reproductive ecology
• Plant systematics

Seth Reice

• Associate Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-1375
• Email: sreice@bio.unc.edu

• Disturbance and community structure
• Stream communities and ecosystems
• Land use impacts on stream community structure
• Ecological consequences of different regulatory regimes: sediment and erosion control ordinances and stream community structure

Peter Robinson

• Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3875
• Email: pjr@email.unc.edu

• Climate Laboratory continues to work towards the development of methods for the assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on human activities
• Development of models for local-scale precipitation specification and for drought analysis
• Assessment of relationships between climate change and water availability in North Carolina

Maria Servedio

• Assistant Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-2692
• Email: servedio@email.unc.edu

• Speciation and the evolution of premating isolation
• Sexual selection and the evolution of mate choice
• Evolution of warning coloration and mimicry
• Species delineation
• Evolution of behavior

Conghe Song

• Assistant Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-4764
• Email: csong@email.unc.edu

• Remote sensing & GIS
• Ecological modeling
• Forest ecosystems
• Digital image processing

Donna Surge

• Assistant Professor, Geological Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-1994
• Email: donna64@unc.edu

Andreas Teske

• Associate Professor, Marine Sciences
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-1252
• Email: teske@email.unc.edu

• Microbial ecology, microbiology of hydrothermal vents and the marine subsurface
• The mirobial sulfur cycle
• Bacteria and archaea of extreme marine environments

James Umbanhowar

• Research Assistant Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 843-8177
• Email: jumbanho@email.unc.edu

• Dynamics of species interactons webs
• Host-parasutoid interactions
• Plant-fungal interacations
• Spatial modeling; cellular automata, and agent-based models

Stephen Walsh

• Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3867
• Email: swalsh@email.unc.edu

• Population-environment interactions
• Land use, land cover dynamics
• Spatial modeling; cellular automata and agent-based models
• Alpine treeline ecotone
• Spatial digital technologies for scale, pattern, and process relationships

Alan Weakley

• Herbarium Curator, NC Botanical Garden
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Ecology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-0578
• Email: weakley@unc.edu

• Flora of the southeastern United States
• Biogeography of North America and patterns of plant endemism
• Plant community classification in North America and the West Indies
• Community mapping on U.S. federal lands
• Theory and practice of conservation inventory and planning

Stephen Whalen

• Associate Professor, Environmental Sciences and Engineering
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 966-9895
• Email: Steve_Whalen@unc.edu

• Nutrient (N,C) cycling dynamics in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems
• The effects of nutrient (N,C) cycling dynamics on primary productivity and greenhouse gas (N2O, CH4, CO2) exchange with the atmosphere

Peter White

• Professor, Biology
• Director, North Carolina Botanical Garden
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-6939
• Email: pswhite@unc.edu

• Scale dependence in species richness; the distance decay of similarity as an aspect of the distribution of biological diversity
• The All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in Great Smoky Mountains National Park Invasive species, rare plants, and natural area conservation and restoration
• Pattern and process in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Thomas Whitmore

• Associate Professor, Geography
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-3916
• Email: whitmore@email.unc.edu

• historical cultural ecology of population collapse
• Amerindian agriculture
• famine vulnerability

R. Haven Wiley

• Professor, Biology
• UNC–Chapel Hill

• Phone: (919) 962-1340
• Email: haven_wiley@unc.edu

• Evolutionary adaptations in the vocal communication of birds
• Mating systems and sexual selection in birds
• Individual recognition in the social behavior of birds
• Physiological and behavioral mechanisms of dominance hierarchies