Peter J. Morin
Professor II
Director, Hutcheson Memorial
Forest
Address:
14 College Farm Road
148 ENRS Building
Cook Campus
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
phone: 732-932-3214 fax: 732-932-8746 e-mail: pjmorin "at" rci "dot" rutgers "dot" edu
Research Interests:
1) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
Much of our recent research has focused on relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in natural and model communities. My laboratory uses microcosms containing microbes to test basic ideas about the role of different species in driving community and ecosystem processes. These studies include explorations of links between diversity and ecosystem predictability, and studies of effects of biodiversity on responses of ecosystems to gradual environmental change. Other studies have used assemblages of amphibians to directly examine the extent of functional equivalence in temporary pond communities.
2) Ecological Networks
Past research in my group has explored the consequences of food web structure for the population dynamics of component species, relations between productivity and food chain length, and effects of different top predators on food web composition.
3) Inducible Trophic Polymorphisms
New work in our group is examining the role of inducible trophic polymorphisms and intraguild predation in generating alternate community states. Related work is examining the population dynamics of protist species with inducible trophic polymorphisms, to understand how environmental variation is related to their expression, and to experimentally demonstrate the adaptive significance of these spectacular examples of phenotypic plasticity.
4) Community Ecology
I am generally interested in the roles of interspecific interactions and abiotic factors in producing patterns of species diversity and community composition. My textbook Community Ecology summarizes current views about the factors that structure communities. Topics of particular interest include the interactive effects of competition, predation, and the history of community assembly on patterns of species abundance in organisms including protists, insects, and amphibians. Other work is exploring the process of community assembly and the potential consequences of irreversible community changes for ecological restoration efforts.
Selected Publications:
1994. Kurzava, L. M., and Morin, P. J. Consequences and causes of geographic variation in the body size of a keystone predator, Notophthalmus viridescens . Oecologia 99: 271-280.
1995. Morin, P. J. Functional redundancy, nonadditive interactions, and supply-side dynamics in experimental pond communities. Ecology 76: 133-149.
1995. Morin, P. J. and S. P. Lawler. Food web architecture and population dynamics: theory and empirical evidence. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 26: 505-529.
1996.
Morin, P. J. and S. P. Lawler. Effects of food chain length
and omnivory on population dynamics in experimental
food webs. Pages 218-230, in G. A. Polis and K. Winemiller (eds.), Food Webs: Integration of Patterns and
Dynamics. Chapman & Hall.
1996. McGrady-Steed, J. and P. J. Morin. Experimental studies of disturbance and diversity in the microbial communities of rain pools. Oikos 76:93-102.
1997. McGrady-Steed, J., P. M. Harris, and P. J. Morin. 1997. Biodiversity regulates ecosystem predictability. Nature 390: 162-165.
1998. Kurzava, L.M. and P.J. Morin. Experimental tests of functional equivalence: Complementary roles of salamanders and fish in organizing amphibian assemblages. Ecology 79:477-489.
1998.
Morin, P.J. Realism, precision, and generality in experimental tests of
ecological theory. Pages 50-70 in W.J. Resetarits and
J. Bernardo (eds). Issues and Perspectives in Experimental Ecology.
1999.
Morin, P. J. Community Ecology. Blackwell Science, Inc.
1999. Morin, P. J. Productivity, intraguild predation, and population dynamics in experimental food webs. Ecology 80: 752-760.
1999. Petchey, O. L., P. Timon McPhearson, T. M. Casey, & P. J. Morin. Environmental warming alters food web structure and ecosystem function. Nature 402:69-72.
2000. McGrady-Steed, J. and P. J. Morin. Biodiversity, density compensation and the dynamics of populations and functional groups. Ecology 81: 361-373.
2000.
Morin, P. J. The complexity of co-dependency. Nature
403: 718-719. (News & Views).
2000.
Morin, P. J. Biodiversity's ups and downs. Nature 406: 463-464. (News & Views).
2001. Fox, J. W. and P. J. Morin. Effects of intra- and interspecific interactions on species responses to environmental change. J. Anim. Ecology 70: 80-90.
2001. John N. Thompson , O. J. Reichman, Peter J. Morin, Gary A. Polis, Mary E. Power, Robert W. Sterner, Carol A. Couch, Laura Gough, Robert Holt, David U. Hooper, Felicia Keesing, Charles R. Lovell, Bruce T. Milne, Manuel C. Molles, David W. Roberts, and Sharon Y. Strauss. Frontiers of Ecology. Bioscience 51: 15-24.
2001. Hulot, F. D., P. J. Morin, & M. Loreau. Interactions between algae and the microbial loop in experimental microcosms. Oikos 95: 231-238.
2001. Long, Zachary T. and P. J. Morin. Review of Stability in Model Populations by L. D, Mueller and A. Joshi. Quarterly Review of Biology 76: 518.
2002. Mary L. Cadenasso, Steward T. A. Pickett & Peter J. Morin. Mammalian herbivore influence on old field succession: Community structure and seedling survival. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 129(3): 228-237.
2002.
Petchey, O. L., Morin, P. J., Hulot,
F. D., Loreau, M., McGrady-Steed,
J. and Naeem, S. 2002. Contributions of aquatic model
systems to our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. - In: Loreau, M., Naeem, S. and Inchausti, P. (eds.), Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Functioning: Syntheses and Perspectives.
2003. Morin, P. J. Community ecology and the genetics of interacting species. Ecology 84: 577-580.
2003. Fukami, T. and P. J. Morin. Productivity-biodiversity relationships depend on the history of community assembly. Nature 424:423-426.
2004. Paul Giller, Helmut Hillebrand, Ulrike-G. Berninger,
Mark O. Gessner, Stephen Hawkins, Pablo Inchausti, Cheryl Inglis, Heather
Leslie, Björn Malmqvist,
Michael T. Monaghan, Peter J. Morin and Gregory O’Mullan.
Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: emerging issues and their
experimental test in aquatic environments. Oikos
104:423-436.
2004. Morin, P. J. and J. McGrady-Steed. Biodiversity
and ecosystem functioning in aquatic microbial systems: a new analysis of
temporal variation and diversity-predictability relations. Oikos
104:458-466.
2004. Price, J. E. and P. J. Morin. Colonization history determines
alternate community states in a food web of intraguild
predators. Ecology 85(4):1017-1028.
2004. Lin Jiang and Peter J. Morin.
Temperature-dependent interaction strength explains unexpected responses to
environmental warming in competitive communities. Journal of Animal Ecology 73:
569-576.
2004. Moore, J. C., E. L. Berlow, D. C.
Coleman, P. C. Ruiter, Q. Dong, A. Hastings, N. C.
Johnson, K. S. McCann, K. Melville, P. J. Morin, K. Nadelhoffer,
A. D. Rosemond, D. M. Post, J. L. Sabo, K. M. Scow,
M. J. Vanni, and D. H. Wall. Detritus,
trophic dynamics and biodiversity. Ecology
Letters 7:584-600.
2004. Morin, P. J. and J. W. Fox. Diversity in the deep
blue sea. Nature 429: 813-814. (News & Views).
2004. Lin Jiang and Peter J. Morin. Productivity gradients cause positive diversity-invasibility relations in microbial communities. Ecology Letters 7: 1047-1057.
2005. Lin Jiang and Peter J. Morin. Predator diet breadth influences the relative importance of bottom-up and top-down control of prey biomass and diversity. Am. Nat. 165: 350-363.
2005. Steiner, C., Z. Long, J. Krumins, and P. Morin. Temporal stability of aquatic food webs: partitioning the effects of species diversity, species composition and enrichment. Ecology Letters 8: 819-828.
2005. Zachary T. Long and Peter J. Morin. Effects of organism size and community composition on ecosystem functioning. Ecology Letters 8: 1271-1285.
2005.
Petchey, O. L., J. McGrady-Steed,
and P. J. Morin. Measuring the
functional diversity of food webs. Pages 334-347, in
P. C. de Ruiter, V. Walters, and J. C. Moore (eds.),
Dynamic Food Webs- Multispecies assemblages,
ecosystem development, and environmental change. Elsevier-Academic
Press.
2005.
Morin, P. J. Food Webs, Biodiversity, and
Ecosystem Functioning. Pages 267-269, in P. C. de Ruiter, V. Walters, & J. C.
Moore (eds.), Dynamic Food Webs- Multispecies
assemblages, ecosystem development, and environmental change.
Elsevier-Academic Press.
2006. Jennifer B. Hughes Martiny, Brendan J.M. Bohannan,
James H. Brown, Robert Colwell, Jed Fuhrman, Jessica Green, M. Claire Horner-Devine,Matthew Kane, Jennifer Adams Krumins,
Cheryl R. Kuske, Peter Morin, Shahid
Naeem, Lise øvreås,
Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Val Smith, James Stale y.
Microbial biogeography: Putting microorganisms on the map. Nature Reviews
Microbiology 4: 102-112.
2006. Steiner, C., Z. Long, J. Krumins, and P. Morin.
2006. Jennifer Adams Krumins,
Zachary T. Long, Christopher F. Steiner and Peter J. Morin. Effects of
food web diversity and productivity on bacterial community function and
composition. Functional Ecology 20: 514-521.
2006 . Zachary
T. Long, Christopher F. Steiner, Jennifer Adams Krumins,
and Peter J. Morin.. Species
richness and allometric scaling jointly determine
biomass in model aquatic food webs. J. Anim. Ecol.
75: 1014-1023.
2007. P. J. Morin. Experimental studies of food webs: causes and
consequences of trophic interactions. Pages 87-100, in Neil Rooney, Kevin S. McCann, David L. G. Noakes, (eds.), From Energetics
to Ecosystems: The Dynamics and Structure of Ecological Systems. Springer-Verlag.
2007. L. Jiang and P. J. Morin.
Temperature fluctuation facilitates coexistence of competing species in
experimental microbial communities. J. Animal Ecology 76: 660-668
2007. Petchey, O. L., Z. T. Long & P. J. Morin. The consequences of
body size in model microbial systems. Pages 245-265, in A. Hildrew,
D. Raffaelli, and R. Edmonds-Brown (eds.) Body size; The structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. Symposium of the British Ecological Society.
2008. Price, J. E. and P. J. Morin. Community convergence in a simple microbial food web. Ecological Research: in press.
2008. Morin, P. J. 2008. Sex as an antiviral strategy. PNAS 105: 15639-15640.
My textbook, Community Ecology, can be obtained from the publisher, Wiley - Blackwell Science .
Errata in the first printing are tabulated here.
Please send information about errors to me at : pjmorin "at" rci "dot" rutgers "dot" edu
Work on the second edition is now in progress!
Courses Taught:
Fall 2008: Seminar in Ecology 215:601
Fall 2008: Ecological Networks 215:599
Spring 2009: Community Dynamics 215:565. Syllabus ,
Readings , Project
Guidelines .
Fall 2009: Quantitative Ecology 215:575. Syllabus .