Kevin Lafferty

Biography

Since 1998, I've worked as an Ecologist with the US Geological Survey. I’ve been at UCSB more or less since I came as an undergraduate in 1981 and then got my Ph.D here in 1991. I have an office and laboratory on campus at UCSB’s Marine Science Institute. As a full-time research scientist, I don’t teach courses on campus, but I do co-supervise Ph.D students in conjunction with other EEMB faculty. My main collaborators on campus are in the Ecological Parasitology Group and in the Marine Science Institute. Potential graduate students should email me directly to inquire.

Research

I use a combination of field studies, laboratory observation, mathematical modeling and literature synthesis to address ecological questions. I’ve been spending time on the following questions:

• What are the interactions between fishing and infectious diseases?
• What determines communities of parasites in estuaries?
• What is the effect of climate change on infectious diseases?
• How does infectious disease interact with biodiversity loss?
• What are the consequences when parasites manipulate host behavior?
• How can we improve food-web theory to account for parasites?
• How can we build food webs with parasites?
• How can we improve consumer-resource models?
• How does infectious disease affect abalone populations?
• How can we protect shorebirds on recreational beaches?
• How can we preserve metapopulations of endangered tidewater gobies?
• What factors structure kelp forest communities?