Current Projects and Recent Publications


IS SCIENCE NOT YOUR PRIMARY FIELD?  PLEASE VISIT OUR FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC PAGE.


Current Projects/Grants

2004-2007: Environmental gradients and variation in the strength of bird predation on oak herbivores. NSF, Ecology. Co-Pi Robert Cooper.

2003-2007: Causes, consequences, and control of outbreaks of the hemlock woolly adelgid.  US Forest Service Cooperative Research Grant.

2002-2007: Long-term consequences of biochemical and biogeochemical changes in the Horseshoe Bend Agroecosystem.   NSF LTREB Competitive Research Grant, Ecosystem Studies. Co-Pi's D.C. Coleman and P.F. Hendrix.

2001-2004: Changes in leaf chemistry, insect herbivory, leaf abscission and decomposition between ambient and elevated CO2.  SERC-NIGEC. Co-Pi, P. Stiling.

2000-2004: Canopy herbivory and soil processes in a temperate and tropical forest: A Supplement. NSF, Ecosystem Ecology. Co-Pi M.D. Lowman.

1999-2004: Canopy herbivory and soil processes in a temperate and tropical forest. NSF Competitive Research Grant, Ecosystem Ecology. Co-Pi's M.D. Lowman and T.D. Schowalter.

2002-2008: Regional scale consequences of global change: Anticipating the supply of ecosystem services. NSF Long-Term Ecological Research. With 31 Co-Pi's.

 

For a more complete description of some of our current work, check out what the graduate students are doing:

Sandy Helms. Influence of plant quality on insect herbivore population dynamics.

Caralyn Zehnder. Influence of maternal effects on population dynamics and interactions between an insect herbivore and its parasitoid.

Carmen Hall. Plant quality and insect herbivory at increased CO2 levels.

Chris Frost. Effects of insect herbivory and frass deposition on nitrogen cycling.

Kyle Wickings. Effects of insect herbivory and frass deposition on nitrogen cycling.

Becky Ball. Influence of litter diversity on ecosystem function.

Jenna Malloway. Effects of hemlock woolly adelgid on ecosystem structure and function.
 

Research Technicians

Star Scott.  Manages the Hunter labs and facilitates the graduate students' research.


Recent Graduates

Mike Madritch.  Effects of genetic biodiversity on ecosystem function.

Rebecca Forkner. Top-down and bottom-up regulation of insect herbivore populations.

Kitti Reynolds. Canopy herbivory and forest floor interactions.

Rebecca Klaper. The relative impact of genotype and environment on the expression of oak phenolics.

Alissa Salmore. Tradeoffs between defense and reproduction in a perennial woodland flower.

Katie Kearns. Toxin induction and interactions among cyanobacteria and algae.
 
 

Publications Associated With Our Recent Projects

2005 Price, P.W. & M.D. Hunter.  Long-term population dynamics of a sawfly show strong bottom-up effects. Journal of Animal Ecology (in press).

2005 Helms, S.E. & M.D. Hunter. Variation in plant quality and the population dynamics of herbivores: there is nothing average about aphids. Oecologia (in press).

2005 Emmerson, M., M. Bezemer, M.D. Hunter, & T.H. Jones. Global change alters the stability of food webs.  Global Change Biology 11: 490-501.

2005 Hall, M.C., P. Stiling, D.C. Moon, B.G. Drake, and M.D. Hunter. Effects of elevated CO2 on foliar quality and herbivore damage in a scrub oak ecosystem. Journal of Chemical Ecology 31: 267-286.

2005 Madritch, M.D. & M.D. Hunter. Phenotypic variation in oak litter influences short- and long-term nutrient cycling through litter chemistry. Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry 37: 319-327.

2005 Redfern, M. & M.D. Hunter. Time tells: long-term patterns in the population dynamics of the yew gall midge, Taxomyia taxi (Cecidomyiidae) over 35 years. Ecological Entomology 30: 86-95.

2004 Frost, C.F. & M.D. Hunter. Insect canopy herbivory and subsequent frass deposition influence soil nitrogen and carbon fluxes and nitrogen export in red oak mini-ecosystems. Ecology 85: 3335-3347.

2004 Price, P.W., W.G. Abrahamson, M.D. Hunter, & G. Melika. Using gall wasps on oaks to test broad ecological concepts. Conservation Biology 18: 1405-1416.

2004 Emmerson, M., T.M. Bezemer, M.D. Hunter, T.H. Jones, G.J. Masters, and N.M. Van Dam. How does global change affect the strength of trophic interactions? Basic and Applied Ecology 5: 505-514.

2004 Madritch, M.D. & M.D. Hunter. Phenotypic diversity and litter chemistry affect nutrient dynamics during litter decomposition in a two-species mix. Oikos 105: 125-131.

2004 Helms, S.E., S.J. Connelly & M.D. Hunter. Effects of variation among plant species on the interaction between an herbivore and its parasitoid. Ecological Entomology 29: 44-51.

2004 Reynolds, B.C. & M.D. Hunter. Nutrient cycling. Pp387-396 in: Forest Canopies. Second Edition. (Eds. M.D. Lowman and B.H. Rinker). Elsevier, MA.

2003 Madritch, M.D. & M.D. Hunter.  Intraspecific litter diversity and nitrogen deposition affect nutrient dynamics and soil respiration. Oecologia 136: 124-128.

2003 Stiling, P., D.C. Moon, M.D. Hunter, J.C. Colson, A.M. Rossi, G. Hymus, & B.G. Drake.   Elevated CO2 lowers relative and absolute herbivore density across all species of a scrub oak forest.   Oecologia 134: 82-87.

2003 Hunter, M.D. Effects of plant quality on the population ecology of parasitoids.   Agricultural and Forest Entomology 5: 1-8.

2003 Hunter, M.D., S. Adl, C.M. Pringle, & D.C. Coleman.   Relative effects of macroinvertebrates and habitat on the chemistry of litter during decomposition.  Pedobiologia 47: 99-114.

2003 Hunter, M.D., C.R. Linnen, & B.C. Reynolds. Effects of endemic densities of canopy herbivores on nutrient dynamics along a gradient in elevation in the southern Appalachians.  Pedobiologia 47: 231-244.

2003 Abrahamson, W.G., M.D. Hunter, G. Melika & P.W. Price. Cynipid gall-wasp communities correlate with oak chemistry.   Journal of Chemical Ecology 29: 209-223.

2003 Reynolds, B.C., D.A.Crossley, Jr., & M.D. Hunter. Response of soil invertebrates to forest canopy inputs along a productivity gradient.  Pedobiologia 47: 125-136.

2002 Madritch, M.D. & M.D. Hunter. Phenotypic diversity influences ecosystem function in an oak sandhills community.  Ecology 83:2084-2090.

2002 Hunter, M.D. A breath of fresh air: beyond laboratory studies of plant volatile-natural enemy interactions. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 4:81-86.

2002 Kearns, K.D. & M.D. Hunter. Algal extracellular products suppress Anabaena flos-aquae heterocyst spacing.  Microbial Ecology 43:174-180.

2002 Hartzfeld, P.W., R.Forkner, M.D. Hunter, & A.E. Hagerman.  Determination of hydrolyzable tannins (gallotannins and ellagitannins) after reaction with potassium iodate.  Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry   50: 1785-1790.

2002 Hunter, M.D.  Landscape structure, habitat fragmentation, and the ecology of insects.  Agricultural and Forest Entomology 4:   159-166.

2002 Hunter, M.D.  Ecological causes of pest outbreaks.  In: Encyclopedia of Pest Management (Ed. D. Pimentel). Pp.214-217. Marcel Dekker, Inc. (in press).

2002 Hunter, M.D. Maternal effects and the population dynamics of insects on plants.  Agricultural and Forest Entomology 4: 1-9.

2002 Coleman, D.C., M.D. Hunter, J. Hutton, S. Pomeroy, & L. Swift Jr. Soil respiration from four aggrading forested watersheds measured over a quarter century.  Forest Ecology and Management 157:247-253.

2001 Hunter, M.D. Multiple approaches to estimating the relative importance of top-down and bottom-up forces on insect populations: Experiments, life tables, and time-series analysis. Basic and Applied Ecology 4: 293-310.

2001 Klaper, R., K. Ritland, T.A. Mousseau, & M.D. Hunter.  Heritability of phenolics in Quercus laevis inferred using molecular markers. Heredity 92:421-426.

2001. Reynolds, B.C. & Hunter, M.D. Responses of soil respiration, soil nutrients, and litter decomposition to inputs from canopy herbivores. Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry 33:1641-1652.

2001 Salmore, A.K. & M.D. Hunter.  Environmental and genotypic influences on alkaloid production in Sanguinaria canadensis.  Journal of Chemical Ecology 27:1729-1747.

2001 Salmore, A.K. & M.D. Hunter.  Elevational trends in alkaloid production in Sanguinaria canadensis.  Journal of Chemical Ecology 27:1713-1728.

2001 Kearns, K.D. & M.D. Hunter.  Toxin-producing Anabaeba flos-aquae induce settling of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a competing motile alga. Microbial Ecology 42:80-86.

2001 Hunter, M.D. Effects of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide on insect-plant interactions. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 3: 153-159.

2001 Lawson, E.T., T.A. Mousseau, R.D. Klaper, M.D. Hunter, & J.H. Werren. Rickettsia associated with male-killing in a buprestid beetle.  Heredity (London) 86:497-505.

2001 Hunter, M.D.  Insect population dynamics meets ecosystem ecology:  Effects of herbivory on soil nutrient dynamics. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 3:77-84.

2001 Rinker, H.B., M.D. Lowman, M.D. Hunter, T.D. Schowalter, & S.J. Fonte.   Canopy herbivory and soil ecology: the top-down impact of forest processes. Selbyana 22: 225-231.

2001 Hunter, M.D. Out of sight, out of mind: The impacts of root-feeding insects in natural and managed systems. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 3:3-10.

2000  Forkner, R.E. & M.D. Hunter. What goes up must come down?  Nutrient addition and predation pressure on oak insects. Ecology 81: 1588-1600.

2000 Hunter, M.D. & J.N. McNeil.  Geographic and parental influences on diapause by a polyphagous insect herbivore. Agriculture and Forest Entomology 2: 49-55.

2000 Hunter, M.D.  Some challenges facing entomology in the next millennium. Bulletin of the Royal Entomological Society 24: 3-11.

2000  Hunter, M.D. & P.W. Price.  Detecting cycles and delayed density dependence: A reply to Turchin and Berryman. Ecological Entomology 25: 122-124.

2000 Kearns, K.D. & M.D. Hunter. Green algal extracellular products regulate anti-algal toxin production in a cyanobacterium. Environmental Microbiology 2: 291-297.

2000 Hunter, M.D.  Between hyperbole and hysteria. Entomological issues and the deployment of transgenic plants. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 2: 77-84.

2000 Reynolds, B.C., M.D. Hunter, & D.A. Crossley Jr. Effects of canopy herbivory on nutrient cycling in a northern hardwood forest in western North Carolina.  Selbyana 21: 74-78.

2000 Hunter, M.D., R.E. Forkner, & J.N. McNeil. Heterogeneity in plant quality and its impact on the population ecology of insect herbivores.  In: The Ecological Consequences of Environmental Heterogeneity (Eds. M.A. Hutchings, E.A. John, and A.J.A. Stewart).  Pp 155-179. Blackwell Scientific.

2000 Hunter, M.D. Mixed signals and cross-talk: Interactions between plants, insect herbivores, and plant pathogens. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 2: 155-160.

 

FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AND A LOOK AT WHAT WE'VE DONE BEFORE, CHECK OUT OUR PAST RESEARCH.

 

ARE WE SPEAKING GREEK? PLEASE VISIT OUR FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC PAGE.