Warren P. Porter | |
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Occupation(s) | Biophysical ecologist, environmental toxicologist and academic |
Academic background | |
Education | BS., Zoology MA., Ichthyology PhD., Physiological Ecology |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin-Madison University of California, Los Angeles |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
Warren P. Porter is a biophysical ecologist,environmental toxicologist,and an academic. He is an emeritus Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin,Madison. [1]
Porter's research focuses on bioinformatics,conservation biology,ecology,animals on landscapes,environmental toxicology,and evolution. [2] He founded and co-founded two companies,Isomark and Niche-Mapper,which develop technology to predict animal health,energetics and behavior.
Porter earned a bachelor's degree in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin,Madison in 1961. He went on to receive a master's degree in Ichthyology in 1963 and later a Ph.D. in Physiological Ecology with Ken Norris in 1966,both from the University of California,Los Angeles. Subsequently,in 1966,he received postdoctoral training in Biophysical Ecology with David Gates at the Missouri Botanical Garden and Washington University in St. Louis. [3]
Porter began his academic career as an assistant professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin in 1968,where he was later appointed associate professor in 1971,and Professor in 1974. He has been serving as an emeritus Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin since 2018. [1]
Porter was Chair of the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin from 1993 to 1998. In 1998,he joined The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis as a Senior Fellow at the University of California in Santa Barbara and remained there on sabbatical for a year. [4] He has been a member of the University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems Advisory Board since 1998. [5] He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Beyond Pesticides since 1998.
Porter has contributed to the field of ecology by studying biophysical ecology,environmental toxicology,modeling animal landscapes,mechanistic ecology,and the effects of climate change on animal survival and reproduction potential. He is known for his investigations into the understanding of physiological limits and climate effects on animal range limits and distributions and also holds patents for his discoveries. He holds 10 patents. [2]
Porter has studied biophysical ecology throughout his career,in collaboration with David Gates. He demonstrated how biophysical ecology principles can assess habitat quality from a physiological perspective,with examples from representative vertebrate and invertebrate groups illustrating the utility of modeling animal landscapes to evaluate climate and land-use change effects. [6] Additionally,he integrated principles from engineering,meteorology,and soil physics with ecology and physiology to develop a model for predicting animal behavior based on energy balance in the Mojave Desert,showcasing close agreement between predicted and measured temperatures. [7]
Porter in collaboration with John Mitchell created and patented an analytical tool called Niche Mapper,which computes the range of local available microclimates and their impacts on animal energetics,behavior,and distribution boundaries on a landscape scale,and integrates these behavior and distribution models with the effects of climate and disease on the landscape. In collaboration with Michael Kearney,Niche Mapper software was converted to a version in R,NicheMapR. He also demonstrated with Megan Fitzpatrick that the mechanistic model,Niche Mapper,accurately simulated the heat exchanges of wading animals,specifically Whooping Cranes,validating its effectiveness in estimating energy expenditure. [8] In collaboration with Peter Dudley,he combined 3D animation software with computational fluid dynamics to develop a computational platform for studying the impact of morphological variations on marine organisms,with a focus on leatherback sea turtles,predicting their distribution over time in response to both climate change and evolutionary shifts in shell structure. [9]
Porter has researched environmental toxicology,particularly examining the impact of subtle environmental contaminants on neurological,endocrine,immune,and developmental functions. He developed a stable isotope technique for the early non-invasive detection of diseases and infections by analyzing naturally occurring stable isotopes in breath in collaboration with Fariba Assadi-Porter and Mark Cook. Moreover,his research work looked into the effects of low-level pesticide mixtures in food and water,revealing changes in learning,aggression,immune function,hormone levels,and developmental anomalies in animals exposed to such mixtures. [10]
Porter explored the effects of climate change on wild and domestic animals. In a collaborative study,he utilized Niche Mapper to accurately model the movements,habitat preferences,and physiology of Western toads in forested habitats,shedding light on the potential physiological costs associated with climate warming in various landscapes. [11] In collaboration with Michael Kearney,he used biophysical models to predict the impact of climate change on the dengue fever bearing mosquito,Aedes aegypti in Australia,highlighting the significance of water availability,egg desiccation resistance,and cold tolerance,with potential indirect effects of altered water storage practices possibly overshadowing direct climate impacts. [12]
Porter in collaboration with Paul Mathewson incorporated a mechanistic model into species distribution models for the American pika revealing the potential for behavioral thermoregulation to mitigate habitat loss under future climate change. [13] He further contributed to the study showing that the St. Paul Island's woolly mammoth population was vulnerable to resource limitations,primarily due to vegetation productivity,island size,and freshwater availability. [14]
Biology –The natural science that studies life. Areas of focus include structure,function,growth,origin,evolution,distribution,and taxonomy.
Ecology is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms,including humans,and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual,population,community,ecosystem,and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography,evolutionary biology,genetics,ethology,and natural history.
Toxicology is a scientific discipline,overlapping with biology,chemistry,pharmacology,and medicine,that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating exposures to toxins and toxicants. The relationship between dose and its effects on the exposed organism is of high significance in toxicology. Factors that influence chemical toxicity include the dosage,duration of exposure,route of exposure,species,age,sex,and environment. Toxicologists are experts on poisons and poisoning. There is a movement for evidence-based toxicology as part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices. Toxicology is currently contributing to the field of cancer research,since some toxins can be used as drugs for killing tumor cells. One prime example of this is ribosome-inactivating proteins,tested in the treatment of leukemia.
In ecology,a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors and how it in turn alters those same factors. "The type and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental niche vary from one species to another [and] the relative importance of particular environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographic and biotic contexts".
Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural,social,and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology,geography,sociology,psychology,anthropology,zoology,epidemiology,public health,and home economics,among others.
This glossary of ecology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts in ecology and related fields. For more specific definitions from other glossaries related to ecology,see Glossary of biology,Glossary of evolutionary biology,and Glossary of environmental science.
Biological dispersal refers to both the movement of individuals from their birth site to their breeding site,as well as the movement from one breeding site to another . Dispersal is also used to describe the movement of propagules such as seeds and spores. Technically,dispersal is defined as any movement that has the potential to lead to gene flow. The act of dispersal involves three phases:departure,transfer,and settlement. There are different fitness costs and benefits associated with each of these phases. Through simply moving from one habitat patch to another,the dispersal of an individual has consequences not only for individual fitness,but also for population dynamics,population genetics,and species distribution. Understanding dispersal and the consequences,both for evolutionary strategies at a species level and for processes at an ecosystem level,requires understanding on the type of dispersal,the dispersal range of a given species,and the dispersal mechanisms involved. Biological dispersal can be correlated to population density. The range of variations of a species' location determines the expansion range.
Realized niche width is a phrase relating to ecology,is defined by the actual space that an organism inhabits and the resources it can access as a result of limiting pressures from other species. An organism's ecological niche is determined by the biotic and abiotic factors that make up that specific ecosystem that allow that specific organism to survive there. The width of an organism's niche is set by the range of conditions a species is able to survive in that specific environment.
Ecotoxicology is the study of the effects of toxic chemicals on biological organisms,especially at the population,community,ecosystem,and biosphere levels. Ecotoxicology is a multidisciplinary field,which integrates toxicology and ecology.
The dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory is a formal metabolic theory which provides a single quantitative framework to dynamically describe the aspects of metabolism of all living organisms at the individual level,based on assumptions about energy uptake,storage,and utilization of various substances. The DEB theory adheres to stringent thermodynamic principles,is motivated by universally observed patterns,is non-species specific,and links different levels of biological organization as prescribed by the implications of energetics. Models based on the DEB theory have been successfully applied to over 1000 species with real-life applications ranging from conservation,aquaculture,general ecology,and ecotoxicology. The theory is contributing to the theoretical underpinning of the emerging field of metabolic ecology.
Ecological forecasting uses knowledge of physics,ecology and physiology to predict how ecological populations,communities,or ecosystems will change in the future in response to environmental factors such as climate change. The goal of the approach is to provide natural resource managers with information to anticipate and respond to short and long-term climate conditions.
There is an ongoing decline in plant biodiversity,just like there is ongoing biodiversity loss for many other life forms. One of the causes for this decline is climate change. Environmental conditions play a key role in defining the function and geographic distributions of plants. Therefore,when environmental conditions change,this can result in changes to biodiversity. The effects of climate change on plant biodiversity can be predicted by using various models,for example bioclimatic models.
Landscape limnology is the spatially explicit study of lakes,streams,and wetlands as they interact with freshwater,terrestrial,and human landscapes to determine the effects of pattern on ecosystem processes across temporal and spatial scales. Limnology is the study of inland water bodies inclusive of rivers,lakes,and wetlands;landscape limnology seeks to integrate all of these ecosystem types.
Species distribution modelling (SDM),also known as environmental(or ecological) niche modelling (ENM),habitat modelling,predictive habitat distribution modelling,and range mapping uses ecological models to predict the distribution of a species across geographic space and time using environmental data. The environmental data are most often climate data (e.g. temperature,precipitation),but can include other variables such as soil type,water depth,and land cover. SDMs are used in several research areas in conservation biology,ecology and evolution. These models can be used to understand how environmental conditions influence the occurrence or abundance of a species,and for predictive purposes (ecological forecasting). Predictions from an SDM may be of a species’future distribution under climate change,a species’past distribution in order to assess evolutionary relationships,or the potential future distribution of an invasive species. Predictions of current and/or future habitat suitability can be useful for management applications (e.g. reintroduction or translocation of vulnerable species,reserve placement in anticipation of climate change).
Soundscape ecology is the study of the acoustic relationships between living organisms,human and other,and their environment,whether the organisms are marine or terrestrial. First appearing in the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology edited by Barry Truax,in 1978,the term has occasionally been used,sometimes interchangeably,with the term acoustic ecology. Soundscape ecologists also study the relationships between the three basic sources of sound that comprise the soundscape:those generated by organisms are referred to as the biophony;those from non-biological natural categories are classified as the geophony,and those produced by humans,the anthropophony.
David B. Dusenbery is a biophysicist with a central interest in how information influences the behavior of organisms. In later years,he also considered the physical constraints hydrodynamics imposes on microorganisms and gametes.
In vitro to in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) refers to the qualitative or quantitative transposition of experimental results or observations made in vitro to predict phenomena in vivo,biological organisms.
Climate change and invasive species refers to the process of the environmental destabilization caused by climate change. This environmental change facilitates the spread of invasive species —species that are not historically found in a certain region,and often bring about a negative impact to that region's native species. This complex relationship is notable because climate change and invasive species are also considered by the USDA to be two of the top four causes of global biodiversity loss.
The ecology of fear is a conceptual framework describing the psychological impact that predator-induced stress experienced by animals has on populations and ecosystems. Within ecology,the impact of predators has been traditionally viewed as limited to the animals that they directly kill,while the ecology of fear advances evidence that predators may have a far more substantial impact on the individuals that they predate,reducing fecundity,survival and population sizes. To avoid being killed,animals that are preyed upon will employ anti-predator defenses which aid survival but may carry substantial costs.
Lauren B. Buckley is an evolutionary ecologist and professor of biology at the University of Washington. She researches the relationship between organismal physiological and life history features and response to global climate change.