Consumer-Resource Interations
Summer 2002

Understanding the relationship between organisms and what they need to survive is central to ecology. Research in this area is critical to understanding patterns of species coexistence and food web dynamics in natural systems. In this cluster, students addressed questions relating consumers to the quantity and quality of the resources available. Student projects focused on very different systems and employed very different techniques to answer related questions about the manner in which organisms interact with their resource base. The students in this cluster were exposed to research into the factors limiting both autotrophs and heterotrophs in aquatic and terrestrial systems.

• The effect of refugia on insect damage to corn - Neisha Green (South Carolina State University) & Dr. Alan Cady
  
• Effects of predation by larval gizzard shad on cladoceran population dynamics in an Ohio reservoir - Natalie Piechocinski (Miami University) & Dr. María González
  
• April Dorsey (Miami University) & Dr. Ann Rypstra
  
• Effects of storm-induced nutrient and light limitation on phytoplankton growth in a SW Ohio reservoir - Scott Andrews (Miami University) & Dr. Mike Vanni