YALE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FORESTRY & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
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David K. Skelly
Yale University
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
370 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511 USA
| David K. Skelly PROFESSOR OF ECOLOGY |
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EDUCATION
RESEARCH INTERESTSEcologists are under pressure to scale up their science to deal with larger areas and longer spans of time. At the same time, ecologists and their constituency demand rigor and mechanistic understanding. The goals of large scale ecology are a natural tension point because of the inherent difficulties attendant to linking large scale patterns with underlying mechanisms. My research is focused on this interface. Most of my work has centered on pond-breeding amphibians. These organisms are an excellent case study in the difficulties and promise confronted by ecologists today. By the late 1980's amphibians were held up as a model system in ecology. As a result of more than two decades of steady effort, some of the most rigorous, complex and informative experiments in community ecology had been completed using larval amphibians. Nevertheless, in 1990 when reports of disappearing populations became widespread, amphibian ecologists were left entirely flatfooted. We had very little concrete to say about the situation. More than a decade later, things are only marginally better. This has happened, in large part, because like most of their colleagues, amphibian ecologists have a generally poor knowledge of the patterns and mechanisms of large scale distributions. I have been working toward filling this gap via a combination of experimentation and observation. Below, I briefly sketch five areas of research: |
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 CURRICULUM VITAERECENT PUBLICATIONSSchwager, M., F. Bullo, D. Skelly, and D. Rus. 2008. A ladybug exploration strategy for distributed adaptive coverage control. Pages 2346 to 2353 in IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Pasadena, CA, May 2008. Link Urban, M. C., B. L. Phillips, D. K. Skelly, and R. Shine. 2008. A toad more traveled: the heterogeneous invasion dynamics of cane toads in Australia. American Naturalist 171: E134-E148. Link Holland, M. P., D. K. Skelly, M. Kashgarian, S. R. Bolden, L. M. Harrison, and M. Cappello. 2007. Echinostome infection in green frogs (Rana clamitans) is stage and age dependent. Journal of Zoology 271:455-462. Link Semlitsch, R. D. and D. K. Skelly. 2007. Ecology and Conservation of Pool-Breeding Amphibians. Pages 127 to 147 in A. Calhoun and P. deMaynadier (Eds.) Science and Conservation of Vernal Pools in Northeastern North America. CRC Press. ISBN 0849336759. Skelly, D. K. 2007. The ailing invader. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:17562-17562. Link Skelly, D. K., S. R. Bolden, L. K. Freidenburg, N. A. Freidenfelds, and R. Levey. 2007. Ribeiroia infection is not responsible for Vermont amphibian deformities. EcoHealth 4:156-163. Link Skelly, D. K., L. N. Joseph, H. P. Possingham, L. K. Freidenburg, T. J. Farrugia, M. T. Kinnison, and A. P. Hendry. 2007. Evolutionary responses to climate change. Conservation Biology 21:1353-1355. Link Urban, M. C., B. L. Phillips, D. K. Skelly, and R. Shine. 2007. The cane toad's (Bufo marinus) increasing ability to invade Australia is revealed by a dynamically updated range model. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274:1413-1419. Link Faculty of 1000 Review Werner, E. E., D. K. Skelly, R. A. Relyea, and K. L. Yurewicz. 2007. Amphibian species richness across environmental gradients. Oikos 116:1697-1712. Link Werner, E. E., K. L. Yurewicz, D. K. Skelly, and R. A. Relyea. 2007. Turnover in an amphibian metacommunity: the role of local and regional factors. Oikos 116:1713-1725. Link Faculty of 1000 Review |