Nathan Dorn

Dr. Dorn is an aquatic ecologist with broad population and community-level interests, but he has particular interests in the effects of predators, nutrients and hydrologic variation on population regulation, trophic dynamics and patterns of coexistence in freshwater ecosystems.  Much of the work in his lab has application to the restoration and management of the freshwater Everglades where he has been working for more than 18 years.

Dr. Dorn’s lab employs a combination of repeated surveys and observational studies along with lab and field experiments to understand:

• The mechanistic effects of predators on communities of prey
• The effects of nutrients on wetland food webs
• The ways wetland hydrologic variation (drought, water level or flow variation) affects population sizes and productivity of small fish and macroinvertebrates that become prey for higher trophic levels (e.g., avifauna).

Dr. Dorn also has international collaborations studying the biology of parthenogenetic (clonal) and invasive marbled crayfish (Procambarus virginalis) which is recently derived from a species native to Florida (P. fallax).

Research Areas

• Population and Community Ecology 
• Freshwater Ecology
• Predator-prey interactions and population limitation
• Ecology of freshwater crayfish

Education

• PhD, Michigan State University, Zoology
• BS, Calvin College, Biology