People
Dr. Jon Benstead
I am a freshwater ecologist with broad research experience and interests. My laboratory’s research program focuses on interactions among three important drivers of ecosystem function and community structure - energy input, nutrient availability, and temperature - that are also changing rapidly because of human activity. While my lab's research leverages the unique characteristics of streams and their suitability for ecosystem-level research, we concentrate on broad questions that are also relevant to other ecosystem types. A major goal for our research program is to integrate the metabolic theory of ecology, with its emphasis on temperature and body size, with the explicit multiple-element approach to resource limitation that is central to ecological stoichiometry. Although guided by theory, our research has a strong empirical focus. It also spans levels from the individual to the ecosystem and often exploits both natural landscape gradients and experimental manipulations at the ecosystem level. Much of my research at UA is in collaboration with Dr. Alex Huryn. Key collaborators at other institutions include Dr. Wyatt Cross at Montana State University and Dr. Amy Rosemond at the University of Georgia. I teach a number of undergraduate and graduate courses at UA.
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Phoenix Rogers |
Tori Hebert |
Phoenix joined the lab in January 2018 after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. His PhD research will be based on macroinvertebrate community responses to higher temperatures in our stream-warming manipulation at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina. See his website here.
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Adam Hensley |
Kyle Breault |
Lydia McGregor |
Former Members of the Lab
Dr. Michael Kendrick |
Dr. Brock Huntsman |
Michael’s M.S. research examined the effects of phosphorus enrichment on invertebrate growth and body elemental content (see the resulting paper here). Michael went on to get a Ph.D. at UA under the direction of Dr. Alex Huryn, working on effects of climate and phosphorus enrichment on the Kuparuk River ecosystem, North Slope of Alaska. He is now an Assistant Marine Scientist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in Charleston, South Carolina.
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Brock's M.S. research focused on bottom-up limitation of populations of the Tennessee cave salamander, Gyrinophilus palleucus, a top predator in cave stream ecosystems (see the resulting paper here). He also published a paper on carrion processing in cave streams while in the lab. Brock went on to get a Ph.D. at West Virginia University under the direction of Dr. Todd Petty, working on ecology of brook trout, and then completed postdoctoral positions at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, New Mexico State University, and West Virginia University. He is now at the United States Geological Survey's California Water Science Center in Sacramento, CA.
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Dr. Scott StarrScott's M.S. research examined temporal and spatial variability in macroinvertebrate community structure in the Sipsey River floodplain ecosystem (see the resulting publication here). Scott went on to get his Ph.D. at Texas Tech University in 2018, working on the ecology of playa wetlands. He is currently teaching biology at Texas Tech.
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Dr. Mike VenarskyMike's Ph.D. research combined a population-level analysis of a cave crayfish, litter decay study, cave energy budgets and a whole-stream detritus addition to examine carbon limitation of cave stream food webs and ecosystems. Having completed postdoctoral research at the USGS in Fort Collins, Colorado, he is now a research fellow at Griffith University's Australian Rivers Institute in Brisbane, Australia.
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Chau Tran |
Cameron Craig |
Chau was laboratory technician from 2010 to 2014. She gained her M.S. degree at the University of Idaho, where her research examined salmonid ecology and stream restoration. Chau went on to a lead technician position at NEON, Inc. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and is now manager of the Southern Rockies and Central Plains NEON domains in Boulder, Colorado.
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Cameron's M.S. research in the laboratory compared stoichiometric strategies of obligate cave and surface crayfishes. He is now a science teacher at Seabury Hall School in Makawao, Hawai'i.
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Oliver Wilmot |
Dr. Dan Nelson |
Oliver's M.S. research examined litter processing and shredder community structure in nine streams along a natural temperature gradient in Alabama and Georgia. Oliver is now an assistant invertebrate zoologist at the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming.
Dr. Mick DemiMick joined the lab in 2010 after completing his M.S. at the University of Maine, where he investigated linkages between lake and outflow food webs, and the role of anadromous fishes in mediating these exchanges. His Ph.D. research at UA investigated the response of detritus-based food webs to variation in detrital N:P stoichiometry. After working for a summer on our temperature-nutrient interaction project in Iceland, Mick is about to start his first postdoctoral position at North Carolina State University, examining the food web consequences of Didymo blooms.
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Dan joined the lab in 2010 after completing his M.S. at the University of Idaho. His Ph.D. research at UA examined the responses of stream food webs to experimental whole-stream warming at our study site in western Iceland. Dan stuck around to help with the 2016 field season in Iceland and is now a postdoc in Dr. Daniel Allen's lab at the University of Oklahoma.
Kyle MadoniKyle joined the lab in August 2018 after finishing his undergraduate degree at Xavier University. Kyle's MS research project is examining how the growth and consumption rates of larval chironomid midges respond to temperature. His fieldwork takes place at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina.
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