Ph.D. 1982,
University of Arizona (631) 632-8594,
e-mail:jgurvtch@life.bio.sunysb.edu
My research spans several traditional categories within the field of ecology. The work I have done falls into three major areas: the experimental investigation of problems at the level of plant populations and communities, evolutionary and genetic aspects of plant physiological ecology and leaf morphology, and statistical applications in ecology with a particular focus on experimental data. While my work has always been concerned with addressing questions of basic scientific interest, recent efforts have attempted to connect the basic research to issues with applied and conservation relevance as well, particularly with consideration of global change issues.
A major research project currently underway concerns the recovery of Long Island pine barrens communities, including the globally rare dwarf pine plains, after severe fires in August 1995 (the trees are pitch pines, Pinus rigida). Although this is clearly a fire-adapted ecosystem, long term fire suppression contributed to fires of such intensity that the community may "flip" to an alternative state due to an altered balance of species interactions after the fire. Working with Dr. Gordon Fox, I am developing an approach to modeling the demography of pitch pines, which depend upon disturbance (primarily fire) to regenerate. The approach focuses on transient dynamics rather than the more conventional matrix demographic focus on what happens 'in the long run' - clearly inappropriate for this and many other disturbance-adapted populations. Models will be tested against a large field data set that I have been accumulating on these pines and the community in which they live. This system offers the unusual and very exciting opportunity to work at the interface between population processes and community structure. The work also touches upon a number of issues related to general plant demographic responses to disturbance, as well as to fire management strategies for fire-prone ecosystems in a suburbanized landscape.
A second major study is using field experiments to test which factors are most responsible for determining community susceptibility or resistance to colonization by invasive plant species in Long Island forests. Most studies on the ecology of invasions have been descriptive (whether quantitative or not), rather than experimental. Taking an experimental approach to this area of tremendous current concern and interest offers a number of compelling advantages, including the opportunity to disentangle and rank the importance of factors contributing to the success or failure of biological invasions. The project began with a survey of vegetation and environmental characteristics (including soil properties and site histories) across a wide range of forests in southeastern NY State. It has continued with a series of experiments in which species introductions and manipulation of environmental variables (light and soil resources) test which factors are most important in facilitating or hindering invasion. The work has already confirmed some suspected relationships and presented a number of surprises. Invasion was positively associated with native species diversity, and with soil nitrogen and calcium. It appears that poor soil resources (but not light or disturbance) exclude invasive species from pine barrens communities, but light availability combined with soil resources are critical in allowing or blocking invasives in mixed hardwood forests. Experimental work in this system is ongoing, and we will continue to pinpoint specific factors responsible for community invasibility in these forests. Another general research interest is experimental design and analysis in ecology. This work evolved out of my desire to design and analyze my own field experiments so that I could get the most information possible out of my hard-earned data. In response to the need for making more appropriate and sophisticated statistical techniques available to the ecologists, I initiated and published an edited text (with Sam Scheiner), Design and Analysis of Ecological Experiments (1993, Chapman and Hall). An updated second edition was recently published, with several new chapters (2001, Oxford University Press). Another major aspect of my statistical efforts has been the development and application of meta-analysis in ecology. Meta-analysis is the quantitative synthesis of the results of independent experiments. Borrowing from meta-analytic techniques in the social science and medicine, I have worked to introduce this approach to the fields of ecology and evolution since the early 1990's. I have both carried out meta-analytic syntheses of ecological research, and been involved in the development of the statistics of meta-analysis to make these methods more applicable to ecological data and ecological questions. In addition, I have co-authored a software package for meta-analysis with the goal of making these techniques more accessible to ecologists (MetaWin, Rosenberg, Adams and Gurevitch, publ. Sinauer Assoc., now in a second version). A major review of meta-analysis in ecology and evolution has recently been published (Gurevitch et al. 2001, Advances in Ecological Research).
Finally, my other major non-teaching effort recently has been co-authoring a textbook, The Ecology of Plants (Gurevitch, Scheiner and Fox), which is to be published by Sinauer Associates in Spring 2002. The origins of writing a textbook grew out of my attempt in my own teaching to bring very current science to undergraduates in a vivid and understandable way, and to communicate my passion for the field.
Link to the www site for my lab.