Biography

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Effects of biodiversity loss, trophic interactions, community ecology, conservation biology, species invasions, and stable isotope techniques

BIOGRAPHY

I received my BA in Germanic Language and Literature and my BS in Zoology in 1994 from the University of Washington. From there, I worked as a technician for the National Marine Fisheries Service in the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) looking at population dynamics of pinnipeds in Alaska.

I received my MS in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences in 1998 from Texas A&M University and took a job as a Research Wildlife Biologist with the NMML. I studied the foraging ecology of marine predators and their prey species utilizing stable isotope and fatty acid techniques. I also participated in many field expeditions collecting data on marine mammals and their prey in Alaskan waters.

I completed my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2008 at the University of California Santa Cruz. My dissertation work examined the trophic impacts of invasive rats in the Aleutian Islands. A part of my research involved designing captive rat studies to provide the best parameters for modeling omnivore diet in the wild using stable isotopes. Using these parameters, I was able to successfully model the foraging ecology of invasive rats in the Aleutian Islands.

I am currently working in a post-doctoral research position at the University of California Santa Barbara with Dr. Brad Cardinale. My work involves examining how variations in biodiversity gradients coupled with variations in number of trophic levels drives community structure and ecosystem function in stream systems. I am also testing hypotheses of how changes in resource biodiversity influences trophic efficiency of consumers. My link on the Cardinale webpage can be found at: http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/eemb/labs/cardinale/people/kurle/index.html