Daniel Gruner

• ENTM 612 Insect Ecology
• ENTM 798V Graduate seminar: R for computation and analysis in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

My research delves into the regulation of interacting species and maintenance of biodiversity in ecological communities. I seek to understand spatial patterns of relative abundance and species richness, and the factors that promote or impair local population persistence and species coexistence in ecosystems, especially among the hyperdiverse insects and invertebrates. The structure and dynamics of who eats who in food webs - trophic ecology - provides central underpinnings to ecology and to this research.

Some of the broad questions we explore in my lab:

• How do geochemical resources and consumers interactively constrain biotic diversity, function, and invasion of pest species? [i.e., how do bottom-up and top-down processes affect trophic structure and ecosystem processes?]
• How do the dynamical scales of organisms at different trophic positions bear on the persistence and strength of food web interactions? [i.e., do large mobile predators initiate stronger and more persistent trophic cascades than small, immobile counterparts?]
• How do global patterns of food web structure vary across ecosystems and over time, and how resilient are these interactions to perturbation? [i.e., are there real differences in trophic structure across ecosystem types, and how do they respond to change?]

• Gruner, D.S., A. Kolekar, J.P. McLaughlin, and D.R. Strong. Host resistance reverses the outcome of competition between microparasites. Ecology (in press)
• Hillebrand, H., E.T. Borer, M.E.S. Bracken, B.J. Cardinale, J. Cebrian, E.E. Cleland, J.J. Elser, D.S. Gruner, W.S. Harpole, J.T. Ngai, S. Sandin, E.W. Seabloom, J.B. Shurin, J.E. Smith, and M.D. Smith. 2009. Herbivore metabolism and stoichiometry constrain herbivory at different organizational scales across ecosystems. Ecology Letters (in press)
• Borer, E.T. and D.S. Gruner. 2009. Top-down and bottom-up regulation of communities. In M. Loreau, ed. Princeton Guide to Ecology. Princeton University Press (in press)
• Ram, K., E.L. Preisser, D.S. Gruner, and D.R. Strong. Metapopulation dynamics override local limits on long-term parasite persistence. Ecology 89(12): 3290-3297 pdf
• Denno, R.F., D.S. Gruner, and I. Kaplan. Potential for entomopathogenic nematodes in biological control: a meta-analytical synthesis and insights from trophic cascade theory. Journal of Nematology 40(2):61-72 pdf
• Ram, K., D.S. Gruner, J.P. McLaughlin, E.L. Preisser, and D.R. Strong. Dynamics of a subterranean trophic cascade in space and time. Journal of Nematology 40(2):85-92 pdf
• Gruner, D. S., J. E. Smith, E. W. Seabloom, S. A. Sandin, J. T. Ngai, H. Hillebrand, W. S. Harpole, J. J. Elser, E. E. Cleland, M. E. S. Bracken, E. T. Borer, and B. M. Bolker. 2008. A cross-system synthesis of herbivore and nutrient resource control on producer biomass. Ecology Letters 11:740-755 link
• Van Bael, S.A., S.M. Philpott, R. Greenberg, P. Bichier, N.A. Barber, K.A. Mooney, and D.S. Gruner. 2008. Birds as predators in tropical agroforestry systems. Ecology 89:928934 pdf
• Gruner, D.S., N.J. Gotelli, J.P. Price and R.H. Cowie. 2008. Does species diversity drive speciation? A reassessment with the Hawaiian biota. Ecography 31:279-285 pdf
• Elser, J.J., M.E.S. Bracken, E.E. Cleland, D.S. Gruner, W.S. Harpole, H. Hillebrand, J.T. Ngai, E.W. Seabloom, J.B. Shurin, and J.E. Smith. 2007. Global analysis of nitrogen and phosphorus limitation of primary producers in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. Ecology Letters 10:1135-1142 pdf see also Nature News & Views
• Gruner, D.S. 2007. Geological age, ecosystem development, and resource constraints on arthropod community structure in the Hawaiian Islands. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 90:551-570 pdf
• Hillebrand, H., D.S. Gruner, E.T. Borer, M.E.S. Bracken, E.E. Cleland, W.S. Harpole, J.T. Ngai, E.W. Seabloom, J.B. Shurin, and J.E. Smith. 2007. Consumer versus resource control of producer diversity depends on ecosystem type and producer community structure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104:10904-10909 pdf
• Gruner, D.S., K. Ram and D.R. Strong. 2007. Soil mediates the interaction of coexisting entomopathogenic nematodes with an insect host. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 94:12-19 pdf
• Handler, A.T., D.S. Gruner, W.P. Haines, M. Lange, and K.Y. Kaneshiro. 2007. Arthropod surveys on Palmyra Atoll, Line Islands , with insights into the decline of the native tree Pisonia grandis (Nyctaginaceae). Pacific Science 61:485-502 pdf
• Gruner, D.S. and A.D. Taylor. 2006. Richness and species composition of arboreal arthropods affected by nutrients and predators: a press experiment. Oecologia 147:714-724 pdf
• Shurin, J.B., D.S. Gruner and H. Hillebrand. 2006. All wet or dried up? Real differences between aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273:1-9 pdf
• Gruner, D.S., A.D. Taylor and R.E. Forkner. 2005. The effects of foliar pubescence and nutrient enrichment on arthropod communities of Metrosideros polymorpha (Myrtaceae). Ecological Entomology 30:428-443 pdf
• Gruner, D.S. 2005. Biotic resistance to an invasive spider conferred by generalist insectivorous birds on Hawaii Island. Biological Invasions 7:541-546 pdf
• Gruner, D.S. 2004. Attenuation of top-down and bottom-up forces in a complex terrestrial community. Ecology 85:3010-3022 pdf

• 2001-2003 Environmental Leadership Program Fellowship
• 2000-2002 National Science Foundation GK-12 Teaching Fellowship
• 2000, 2002 ARCS Foundation Scholarship
• 1999 Watson T. Yoshimoto Prize for Animal Wildlife Conservation
• 1997-1999 Environmental Protection Agency STAR Graduate Fellowship

• Ph.D. in Zoology. University of Hawai‘i, Mânoa, HI, 2004
• A.B. in Biology. Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 1993