Eugene Pleasants Odum was an American biologist at the University of Georgia known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He and his brother Howard T. Odum wrote the popular ecology textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology (1953). The Odum School of Ecology is named in his honor.
Paul W. Ewald is an American evolutionary biologist, specializing in the evolutionary ecology of parasitism, evolutionary medicine, agonistic behavior, and pollination biology. He is the author of Evolution of Infectious Disease (1994) and Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease (2002), and is currently director of the program in Evolutionary Medicine at the Biology Department of the University of Louisville.
Optimal virulence is a concept relating to the ecology of hosts and parasites. One definition of virulence is the host's parasite-induced loss of fitness. The parasite's fitness is determined by its success in transmitting offspring to other hosts. For about 100 years, the consensus was that virulence decreased and parasitic relationships evolved toward symbiosis. This was even called the law of declining virulence despite being a hypothesis, not even a theory. It has been challenged since the 1980s and has been disproved.
Ophryocystis elektroscirrha is an obligate, neogregarine protozoan parasite that infects monarch and queen butterflies. There are no other known hosts. The species was first discovered in Florida, around the late 1960s. Since then, it has been found in every monarch population examined to date, including monarchs sampled in North America, Hawaii, Australia, Cuba, and Central and South America.
Insect migration is the seasonal movement of insects, particularly those by species of dragonflies, beetles, butterflies and moths. The distance can vary with species and in most cases, these movements involve large numbers of individuals. In some cases, the individuals that migrate in one direction may not return and the next generation may instead migrate in the opposite direction. This is a significant difference from bird migration.
The Odum School of Ecology is a school within the University of Georgia and the successor of the UGA Institute of Ecology. It is named after Eugene Odum, renowned UGA biologist, the father of ecosystem ecology, and the founder of the Institute.
Evolution of Infectious Disease is a 1993 book by the evolutionary biologist Paul W. Ewald. In this book, Ewald contests the traditional view that parasites should evolve toward benign coexistence with their hosts. He draws on various studies that contradict this dogma and asserts his theory based on fundamental evolutionary principles. This book provides one of the first in-depth presentations of insights from evolutionary biology on various fields in health science, including epidemiology and medicine.
Ecoimmunology or Ecological Immunology is the study of the causes and consequences of variation in immunity. The field of ecoimmunology seeks to give an ultimate perspective for proximate mechanisms of immunology. This approach places immunology in evolutionary and ecological contexts across all levels of biological organization.
Meghan Anne Duffy is an American biologist and the Susan S. Kilham Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. She focuses on the causes and consequences of parasitism in natural populations of lake populations. In 2019, she created a task force to examine factors that influence the mental health and well-being of graduate students at the University of Michigan.
Disease ecology is a sub-discipline of ecology concerned with the mechanisms, patterns, and effects of host-pathogen interactions, particularly those of infectious diseases. For example, it examines how parasites spread through and influence wildlife populations and communities. By studying the flow of diseases within the natural environment, scientists seek to better understand how changes within our environment can shape how pathogens, and other diseases, travel. Therefore, diseases ecology seeks to understand the links between ecological interactions and disease evolution. New emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are increasing at unprecedented rates which can have lasting impacts on public health, ecosystem health, and biodiversity.
Amy D. Rosemond is an American aquatic ecosystem ecologist, biogeochemist, and Distinguished Research Professor at the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. Rosemond studies how global change affects freshwater ecosystems, including effects of watershed urbanization, nutrient pollution, and changes in biodiversity on ecosystem function. She was elected an Ecological Society of America fellow in 2018, and served as president of the Society for Freshwater Science from 2019-2020.
Jessica Kissinger is a Distinguished Research Professor at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, University of Georgia and director of the Institute of Bioinformatics. Her research focus is on the evolution, assembly and data curation of protozoan parasite genomes, particularly Cryptosporidium, Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium.
Catherine Mann Pringle is a distinguished research professor at the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. She studies aquatic ecosystems and conservation. Pringle has previously served as president of the Society for Freshwater Science. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America.
Vanessa Olivia Ezenwa is an American ecologist, and is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University. Her research considers the ecology of infectious diseases amongst animal populations. In 2020, she was selected by The Community of Scholars as one of the most Inspiring Black scientists in the United States.
Christine Merlin is a French chronobiologist and an associate professor of biology at Texas A&M University. Merlin's research focuses on the underlying genetics of the monarch butterfly circadian clock and explores how circadian rhythms modulate monarch behavior and navigation.
Catherine Drew Harvell is a marine ecologist who researches ocean biodiversity and ocean health, specializing in diseases in marine ecosystems.
Nicole M. Gerardo is an entomologist and Professor of Biology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2021, she became editor of the Annual Review of Entomology.
Heather Margaret Ferguson FRSE, Professor of Medical Entomology and Disease Ecology, at Glasgow University; a specialist in researching mosquito vectors that spread malaria, in global regions where this is endemic, aiming to manage and control a disease which the World Health Organization estimates killed over 400,000 people in 2020. Ferguson co-chairs the WHO Vector Control Advisory Group and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.
Felicia Keesing is an American ecologist and the David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Chair of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Richard Simon Ostfeld is a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He is best known for his work on the ecology of Lyme disease, which he began studying while monitoring the abundance of small mammals in the forests of Cary Institute property in the early 1990s.
