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Flecker, Alexander S
Cornell Faculty Member
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Affiliations
other Cornell affiliations
member of
- David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) Faculty Fellow
Research
research overview
- 1. Role of animals in influencing community and ecosystem processes in aquatic systems. Research in my lab includes work in Neotropical streams (Venezuela, Trinidad, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru), high Andean hypersaline lagoons (Bolivia), desert streams (New Mexico), and north temperate streams (Colorado, New York). 2. Importance of migratory fish as ecosystem subsidies, and the influence of overharvest on migratory species. 3. Community and ecosystem consequences of biological invasions and species loss 4. Interactions between evolutionary and ecosystem processes.
principal investigator on
- COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: DIMENSIONS: AN INTEGRATIVE TRAITS-BASED APPROACH TO PREDICTING VARIATION IN VULNERABILITY OF TROPICAL AND TEMPERATE STREAM BIODIVERSITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE awarded by DIRECTORATE FOR BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES NSF 2011 - 2016
- FIBR: FROM GENES TO ECOSYSTEMS: HOW DO ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES INTERACT IN NATURE? awarded by NATL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 2006 - 2012
co-principal investigator on
area(s) of concentration/expertise
other area(s) of concentration/expertise
- Tropical ecology
keywords
- aquatic ecology
- biodiversity
- biogeochemistry
- community and ecosystem ecology
- conservation biology
- ecosystem ecology
- ecosystem subsidies
- evolutionary ecology
- fish
- invasion ecology
- species interactions
- stable isotopes
- stream ecology
- tropical biolgoy
- tropics
Publications
individual publications
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academic article
- A global experiment suggests climate warming will not accelerate litter decomposition in streams but might reduce carbon sequestration. Ecology Letters. 14:289-294. 2011
- Detritivorous fish indirectly reduce insect secondary production in a tropical river. Ecosphere. 2:135. 2011
- Extremely long-distance seed dispersal by an overfished Amazonian frugivore. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 278:3329-3335. 2011
- Leaf-litter decomposition across three flooding regimes in a seasonally flooded Amazonian watershed. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 27:205-210. 2011
- Nutrient diffusing substrata: a field comparison of commonly used methods to assess nutrient limitation. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 30:522-532. 2011
- Local adaptation in Trinidadian guppies alter ecosystem processes. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 107:3616-3621. 2010
- Patch dynamics and environmental heterogeneity in lotic ecosystems. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 29. 2010
- Upwelling couples chemical and biological dynamics in the pelagic and littoral zones of Lake Tanganyika, East Africa. Limnology and Oceanography. 55. 2010
- Crossing borders: promoting graduate research in the developing world: Faculty Response. . Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 7:333-334. 2009
- Feedbacks of consumer nutrient recycling on producer biomass and stoichiometry: separating direct and indirect effects. . Oikos: A Journal of Ecology. 118:1732-1742. 2009
- High quality seed dispersal by fruit-eating fishes in Amazonian floodplain habitats. . Oecologia. 161. 2009
- Sediment size and nutrients regulate denitrification in a tropical stream. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 28:480-490. 2009
- Fish distributions and nutrient recycling in a Neotropical stream: Can fish create biogeochemical hotspots?. Ecology. 89:2335-2346. 2008
- Fish extinctions alter nutrient recycling in tropical freshwaters. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 104:4461-4466. 2007
- Improving the fluorometric ammonium method: matrix effects, background fluorescence, and standard additions. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 26:167-177. 2007
- Limnology of Andean piedmont rivers of Venezuela. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 25:66-81. 2006
- Loss of a harvested fish species disrupts carbon flow in a diverse tropical river. Science. 313:833-836. 2006
- Rapid turnover of tissue nitrogen of primary consumers in tropical freshwaters. . Oecologia. 148:12-21. 2006
- Land use change and soil nutrient transformations in the Los Haitises region of the Dominican Republic. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 37:215-225. 2005
- Nutrient recycling by two phosphorus-rich grazing catfish: The potential for phosphorus-limitation of fish growth. Oecologia. 146:247-257. 2005
- Deforesting the riverscape: The effects of wood on fish diversity in a Venezuelan piedmont stream. Biological Conservation. 120:439-447. 2004
- Effects of behavioral and morphological plasticity on risk of predation in a Neotropical tadpole. Oecologia. 141:130-138. 2004
- Effects of land use history on hurricane damage and recovery in a neotropical forest. Plant Ecology. 174:49-58. 2004
- Testing the role of sediment-mediated interactions between tadpoles and armored catfish in a Neotropical stream. Copeia Journal. 2004:610-616. 2004
- Tropical fishes as biological bulldozers: Density effects on resource heterogeneity and species diversity. Ecology. 85:2267-2278. 2004
- Local vs. landscape controls on plant species richness in beaver meadows. Ecology. 84:3162-3173. 2003
- An ecosystem engineer, the beaver, increases species richness at the landscape scale. Oecologia. 132:96-101. 2002
- Interactions between herbivorous fishes and limiting nutrients in a tropical stream ecosystem. Ecology. 83:1831-1844. 2002
- Land use in watersheds of the Venezuelan Andes: A comparative analysis. Conservation Biology. 16:527-538. 2002
- Stoichiometry of nutrient recycling by vertebrates in a tropical stream: Linking species identity and ecosystem processes. Ecology Letters. 5:285-293. 2002
- Lizard diversity and agricultural disturbance in a Caribbean forest landscape. Biodiversity and Conservation. 10:711-723. 2001
- Sampling reptile diversity in the West Indies with glue traps. Herpetological Review. 31:88-90. 2000
- Ecosystem engineering by a tropical tadpole: Density dependent effects on habitat structure and larval growth rates. Copeia Journal. 1999:495-500. 1999
- Habitat modification by tropical fishes: Environmental heterogeneity and the variability of interaction strength. Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 16:286-295. 1997
- Ecosystem engineering by a dominant detritivore in a diverse tropical ecosystem. Ecology. 77:1845-1854. 1996
- Community-wide consequences of trout introduction in New Zealand streams. Ecological Applications. 4:798-807. 1994
- Disturbance and the temporal variability of invertebrate assemblages in two Andean streams. Freshwater Biology. 31:131-142. 1994
- Biodiversity conservation in running waters. BioScience. 43:32-43. 1993
- Fish predation and the evolution of invertebrate drift periodicity: Evidence from neotropical streams. Ecology. 73:438-448. 1992
- Fish trophic guilds and the structure of a tropical stream: Weak direct versus strong indirect effects. Ecology. 73:927-940. 1992
- Diel changes in epibenthic activity and gut fullness of some mayfly nymphs. Verhandelingen Inter. Verein. Theoret. Ang. Limnol. 24:2881-2885. 1991
- Drift of larvae of the characin Bryconamericus deuterodonoides in piedmont Andean streams. Environmental Biology of Fishes. 31:197-202. 1990
- The mating biology of a mass-swarming mayfly. Animal Behavior. 37:361-371. 1989
- Flight direction in some Rocky Mountain mayflies (Ephemeroptera), with observations of parasitism. Aquatic Insects. 10:33-42. 1988
- Male body size and mating success in swarms of the mayfly Epeorus longimanus. Holarctic Ecology. 11:280-285. 1988
- Prey preference in stoneflies: A comparative analysis of prey vulnerability. Oecologia. 76:496-503. 1988
- Prey preference of stoneflies: Sedentary vs. mobile prey. Oikos: A Journal of Ecology. 49:323-331. 1987
- Prey size selection by carnivorous stoneflies. Limnology and Oceanography. 32:864-872. 1987
- Diel epibenthic activity of mayfly nymphs, and its non-concordance with behavioral drift. Limnology and Oceanography. 31:1057-1065. 1986
- The effects of predation and detritus on the structure of a stream insect community. Oecologia. 64:300-305. 1984
- The importance of predation, substrate and spatial refugia in determining lotic insect distributions. Oecologia. 64:306-313. 1984
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chapter
- The role of vector diversity in disease dynamics. Infectious Disease Ecology: Effects of Ecosystems on Disease and of Disease on Ecosystems. 2008
- Sources and effects of subsidies along the stream-estuary continuum. Food Webs at the Landscape Level. 2004
- Virus specificity in disease systems: Are species redundant?. The importance of species: Perspectives on expendability and triage. 2003
- Virus specificity in disease systems: Are species redundant? . The Importance of Species: Perspectives on Expendability and Triage. 330-346. 2003
- Community-wide consequences of trout introduction in New Zealand streams. Ecosystem Management: Selected Readings. 203-215. 1996
- The role of biodiversity in tropical managed ecosystems. Biodiversity and ecosystem processes in tropical forests. 173-194. 1996
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conference paper
- Non-native grazers in novel environments: Consequences of introduced armored catfish in stream ecosystems. Proc. 96th Annual Meeting Ecological Society of America. 2011
- Ecological stoichiometry as in integrative framework in stream fish ecology. American Fisheries Society Symposium. 539-558. 2010
- Migratory fishes as materal and process subsidies in riverine ecosystems. American Fisheries Society Symposium. 559-592. 2010
- Fish extinctions alter nutrient recycling in tropical freshwaters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 4461-4466. 2007
- Agroecosystems and biodiversity. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Sustainable Cacao Growing. 1998
- Agroecosystems and biodiversity. Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Sustainable Cacao Growing, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. 1998
- The role of biodiversity in tropical managed ecosystems. Biodiversity and ecosystem processes in tropical forests. 173-194. 1996
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report
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review
presentations
featured in archived article
- Cornell co-leads $3 million study of how climate change affects biodiversity
- Cornell ecologist shares in federal grant to study how a species might affect its own evolution
- From fruit-eating fish to ice storm damage in forest streams, Cornell researchers explore ecological issues at annual meeting
- Merrill Scholars honor influential high school, CU teachers
- Overfished Amazon fish disperse seeds long distances
- The decline of just one fish species can disrupt an entire ecosystem, study finds
- When fish become extinct, the cycling of critical nutrients in ecosystems changes, Cornell study finds
Teaching
teaching overview
- Ecology & the Environment (BioEE 2610) Stream Ecology (BioEE 4560) Undergraduate Research (BioEE 2990 and 4990)
teaching activities
- BIOEE-7600: Special Topics in Evolution and Ecology - Spring 2013
- BIOEE-9990: Ph.D. Dissertation Research - Spring 2013
- BIOEE-1610: Introductory Biology: Ecology and the Environment - Fall 2012
- BIOEE-9990: Ph.D. Dissertation Research - Fall 2012
- BIOEE-9990: Ph.D. Dissertation Research - Spring 2012
- BIOEE-1610: Ecology and the Environment - Fall 2011
- BIOEE-4560: Stream Ecology - Fall 2011
- BIOEE-9990: Ph.D. Dissertation Research - Fall 2011
- NTRES-4560: Stream Ecology - Fall 2011
Service
service to the profession
- American Fisheries Society; Maryland
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- Ecological Society of America
- Neotropical Ichthyological Association
- Sigma Xi
- Society for Conservation Biology
- Unspecified
- Ecological Society of America / Publications Committee Committee Member 2008 - 2011
- North American Benthological Society / Award of Excellence and Distinguished Service Awards Committee Committee Member 2008
- Committee on Women and Minorities in Ecology Meeting, Ecological Society of America Committee Member - 2004
- Planning Committee, Workshop on Ethics of Conservation Intervention in Latin America, sponsored by the National Resource Center on Latin America, Cornell University Committee Member - 1990
reviewer or editor for
event host
Background
education and training
- Ph.D. in Zoology, University of Maryland 1990
- M.S. in Zoology, University of Maryland 1984
- B.S. in Zoology, Oregon State University 1980
awards and honors
Other
college
- CALS
research keyword
- aquatic ecology
- biodiversity
- biogeochemistry
- community and ecosystem ecology
- conservation biology
- ecosystem ecology
- ecosystem subsidies
- evolutionary ecology
- fish
- invasion ecology
- species interactions
- stable isotopes
- stream ecology
- tropical biolgoy
- tropics