Dr. Boris Worm

Dr. Boris Worm

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

MSc (University of Kiel, Germany, 1996),
PhD (University of Kiel, Germany, 2000)
PostDoc Dalhousie University (2000-2003)
PostDoc Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, Kiel, Germany (2003-2004)

Teaching & Research

Students' Research Topics

Publications

Links

Teaching & Research

marine conservation biology, biodiversity science, experimental community ecology, macroecology

y interests in teaching and research focus on the causes and consequences of changes in marine biodiversity, and its conservation on a global scale. The oceanic ecosystem is by far the largest on Earth, covering more than 70% of the planet by area and an even larger percentage by volume. Human domination of this ecosystem is rapidly expanding through the effects of overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change. Serious conservation concerns arise as many species, particularly large predators such as some tuna and billfishes, sharks, and turtles are driven to dangerously low levels.

Classes in which Boris currently teaches:

Biology 2060 Introductory Ecology
Biology 3065 Conservation Biology

. Apart from looming species extinctions there are some wider ecosystem concerns. Consumers can play an important role in maintaining aquatic diversity and ecosystem functioning and the elimination of some large predators and herbivores from inshore areas has triggered cascading ecosystem effects, which contributed to the loss of ecosystem goods and services and the collapse of some coastal ecosystems. If similar changes occur in the open ocean they are bound to be massive in scale, and probably difficult to reverse. This is why I try to quantify the recent changes in marine biodiversity, to understand the consequences of these changes, and how to halt or reverse deleterious trends. In our research my students and I employ a combination of experimental, observational, and analytical techniques.

Conservation biology, BIOL 3065: This class offers an introduction to conservation biology, the science of understanding and conserving biodiversity on Earth. Scientists recognize that humans are affecting biodiversity, and that the consequences are deleterious to species, ecosystems, and ultimately our society. This class has two goals: (1) to learn how patterns and changes in biodiversity are quantified and tracked over time and space, and (2) to learn about methods and tools used to prevent the extinction of species and the disruption of habitats and ecosystems. Examples come from terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Tutorials involve student presentations on key papers in conservation biology as well as windows-based computer simulations. Both ecological principles and the management implications of conservation biology will be discussed in detail.
Term: Winter
Pre-requisites: BIOL 2060.03, STAT 1060.03

Examples of Students'Research Topics

Stephanie Boudreau (PhD, since 2005): Invertebrate fisheries and conservation: habitat complexity, predation, and bycatch. Stephanie analyses the temporal and spatial patterns in American lobster abundance along the North American East Coast.

Derek Tittensor (PhD, since 2004): Marine macroecology. Derek focuses on species-area relationships and the scaling laws of biodiversity in marine ecosystems.

Anneli Ehlers (PhD, since 2003): Genetic diversity and ecosystem functioning: Anneli experimentally manipulates the genetic diversity of seagrass in order to quantify effects on seagrass productivity and resistance to environmental change.

Selected Publications

Reusch TBH, Ehlers A, Hämmerli A, Worm B (2005) Ecosystem recovery after climatic extremes enhanced by genotypic diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102:2826-2831

Worm B, Myers RA (2004) Managing fisheries in a changing climate. Nature 429:15

Worm B, Duffy JE (2003) Biodiversity, productivity, and stability in real food webs. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18:628-632

Worm B, Lotze HK, Myers RA (2003) Predator diversity hotspots in the blue ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100:9884-9888

Worm B, Myers RA (2003) Meta-analysis of cod-shrimp interactions reveals top-down control in oceanic food webs. Ecology 84: 162-173

Myers RA, Worm B (2003) Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities. Nature 423:280-283

Worm B, Lotze HK, Hillebrand H, Sommer U (2002) Consumer versus resource control of species diversity and ecosystem functioning. Nature 417:848-851

Links

http://myweb.dal.ca/bworm/#_Publications
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