Aaron M. Ellison
Harvard Forest
Harvard University
Petersham, Massachusetts 01366
978-724-3302 (voice)
978-724-3595 (fax)
aellison@fas.harvard.edu
Further Information: http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/personnel/web/aellison/
Research Interests
Community ecology: ant diversity and community structure; assembly rules; carnivorous plants; ecology of disturbance; food webs; statistics and statistical ecology; wetland ecology.
Education
1982 -- B.A. (East Asian studies/Asian philosophy), Yale University.
1986 -- Ph.D. (Ecology and evolutionary biology), Brown University.
Positions Held
| February 1980 - May 1980 | Assistant Curator in Invertebrate Zoology, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University |
| June 1980 - May 1982 | Research Assistant, Yale University |
| September 1983 - May 1986 | Teaching Assistant, Brown University |
| July 1986 - July 1988 | Post-doctoral Research Associate and Lecturer, Section of Ecology and Systematics and Ecosystems Research Center, Cornell University |
| September 1988 - August 1989 | Post-doctoral Research Associate, Organization for Tropical Studies, Costa Rica, and Department of Biology, Tulane University |
| September 1989 - August 1990 | Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Swarthmore College |
| September 1990 - June 2003 | Assistant Professor (1990-1993) |
| Marjorie Fisher Assistant Professor (1993-1996) | |
| Marjorie Fisher Associate Professor (1996-2001) | |
| and Marjorie Fisher Professor (2001-2003) of Environmental Studies, Department of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College |
|
| November 1993 - present | Five College Graduate Faculty, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, Departments of Natural Resources Conservation, and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology |
| July 1998 - June 2001 | Director, Mount Holyoke College Center for Environmental Literacy |
| September 2001 - June 2002 | Bullard Fellow, Harvard Forest, Harvard University |
| June 2002 - present | Senior Research Fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard Forest, Harvard University |
Active Research Awards
November 2002 - National Science Foundation "Effects of nutrient stress on a co-evolved food web", DEB 02-35128, 3 years (1/1/2003-12/31/2005), $322,466
December 2002 - Harvard Center for the Environment, "Ecological and environmental impacts of the extinction of core species", $46,000, 12/3/2002
March 2003 - National Science Foundation "FSML: Infrastructure for Whole-Plant Biology and Experimental Plant Ecology at the Harvard Forest", DBI 03-30605, 2 years (12/15/2003-12/14/2005), $139,802.
March 2005 (Pending final approval by NSF) - National Science Foundation "REU SITE: Harvard Forest REU Program in Forest Ecology 2005-2009: Multi-Scale Investigations of a Forested Ecosystem in a Changing World", EHR 04-52254, 5 years (3/1/2005 - 2/28/2010), $735,000.
Current Service to the Community
Associate Editor-in-Chief, Ecology and Ecological Monographs (through 2005)
Board of Editors, Ecology Letters (beginning 2005)
Commissioner, Royalston Conservation Commission (through 2006)
Memeber, Open Space Committee, Town of Royalston
Member, Land Protection Committee, Mt. Grace Land Conservation Trust
Recent Publications (of 73 total)
Ellison, A. M. & E. J. Farnsworth. 2005. The cost of carnivory for Darlingtonia californica (Sarraceniaceae): evidence from relationships among leaf traits. American Journal of Botany (in press).
Gotelli, N. J., & A. M. Ellison. 2005. Forecasting extinction risk with non-stationary matrix models. Ecological Applications (in press).
Dixon, P. M., A. M. Ellison, & N. J. Gotell. 2005. Improving the precision of estimates of the frequency of rare events. Ecology (in press).
Gotelli, N. J. & A. M. Ellison. 2004. A primer of Ecological Statistics. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusets, USA.
Ellison, A. M. 2004. Bayesian inference for ecologists. Ecology Letters 7: 509-520.
Ellison, A. M., H. L. Buckley, T. E. Miller, & N. J. Gotelli. 2004. Morphological variation in Sarracenia purpurea (Sarraceniaceae): geographic, environmental, and taxonomic correlates. American Journal of Botany 91: 1930-1935.
Buckley, H. L., T. E. Miller, A. M. Ellison, & N. J. Gotelli. 2003. Reverse latitudinal trends in species richness of pitcher-plant food webs. Ecology Letters 6: 825-829.
Ellison, A. M. 2003. Wetlands of Central America. Wetlands Ecology & Management 12: 3-55.
Ellison, A. M., N. J. Gotelli, J. S. Brewer, L. Cochran-Stafira, J. Kneitel, T. E. Miller, A. S. Worley & R. Zamora. 2003. The evolutionary ecology of carnivorous plants. Advances in Ecological Research 33: 1-74.
Ellison, A. M. & N. J. Gotelli. 2002. A fine-scale indicator of nitrogen saturation in northern ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 99: 4409-4412.
Ellison, A. M., & N. J. Gotelli. 2001. Evolutionary ecology of carnivorous plants. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16: 623-629.
Ellison, A. M. & E. J. Farnsworth. 2001. Mangrove communities. Pages 423-442 in: M. D. Bertness, S. D. Gaines & M. E. Hay, editors. Marine Community Ecology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.