Arizona State University

Post-Doc, School of Life Sciences

Other Affiliations: Colorado State University, Natural Resource Ecology Lab

Thesis Title: The effects of variation in water availability on terrestrial animal communities

About

Currently, I am a post-doc at Arizona State University with my former PhD advisor John Sabo, to continue our work on water webs and hydro-foraging ecology (see below).

Previously I was an Affiliate Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University and a contractor for USGS.  There I worked to develop a framework for projecting the effects of global change on river ecosystems.  The project developed into a focus on understanding and modeling entire river basins, examining riverine macroecology.  I had a long list of collaborators, including LeRoy Poff, Geoff Poole, Jim Thorp, Margaret Palmer, Jill Baron, and others.  We have a paper in preparation that describes riverine macroecology.

My PhD research focused on the influence of water resources on terrestrial animal communities.  Most of my research examined the influence of river drying on streamside (riparian) animals, but I also examined how irrigation influenced communities in the urban desert ecosystem in Phoenix, AZ.  My PhD advisor, John Sabo, and I have coined a new term for what we study: the "water web."  One of my dissertation chapters, published in Ecology (June 2009) and highlighted as a Science Editor's Choice, provided experimental evidence that free water availability controlled trophic interactions between riparian spiders, crickets, and moist vegetation.  Essentially, in the short-term, spiders and crickets consumed moist food for the water in it rather than food and nutrients (spiders were "drinking" crickets and crickets were "drinking" leaves).

I've recently published papers on 1) new methods of using stable water isotopes to trace the water web, 2) examination of the effects of river drying on riparian arthropods (see papers section), and 3) the response of species interactions to changes in water availability in drylands worldwide. 

I hope to eventually work on water webs and hydro-foraging as a major research emphasis in my own lab, trying to develop a new sub-discipline or approach to ecology that views water and chemicals in water as fundamental factors controlling terrestrial animals.  I also plan to continue my work examining riverine macroecology and projecting responses of riverine ecosystems to global change and management.

Follow me here, on twitter @KevinEMcCluney, or on google+.

Contact Information