Kevin Lafferty
Biography
Dr. Kevin Lafferty's main interest lies in how parasites affect ecosystems and, in turn, how ecosystems affect parasites. He is also involved in research on the conservation of marine resources, investigating strategies for protecting endangered shorebirds, fish and abalone. He has also assessed the effects of marine reserves.
Dr. Lafferty received his Ph. D. in Ecological Parasitology in 1991 at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and took a post doc with the National Marine Sanctuary and a research position at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is presently a Marine Ecologist for the USGS at the Channel Islands Field Station. As a UCSB adjunct faculty member, the university's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology generously provides for Dr. Lafferty's office and laboratory space in the Marine Lab. He advises graduate students in Marine Ecology, but has no formal teaching assignments.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Conservation biology
- Invasive species ecology
- Nearshore marine ecology
- Parasite ecology
- Wetland ecology
EDUCATION
- Ph.D., Ecology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 1991
- M.A., Zoology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 1988
- B.A., Aquatic Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 1985
PROFESSIONAL AND HONORARY SOCIETIES AND SCIENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEES
- Amercian Society of Parasitologists
- American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
- California Botanical Society
- Ecological Society of America
- Natural Areas Association
- Western Society of Naturalists
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
- Marine Ecologist, USGS, Western Ecological Science Center, Jul 1998-Present
- Assistant Adj. Prof., UCSB, Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, Jul 1998-Present
- Assist. Research Biologist, UCSB Marine Science Institute, Jun 1996-Jul 1998
- Assist. Research Biologist, UCLA, Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Jun 1994-Jul 1998
- Assist. Research Biologist, UCSB, Marine Science Institute, Jan 1993-May 1994
- Post Doctoral Researcher, National Marine Sanctuaries Program, Jan 1992-Dec 1992
Science and Products
Ecology of Infectious Diseases
The public is most familiar with parasites' role in spreading infectious diseases to people and domestic animals. In tropical developing countries, malaria, schistosomiasis, and other infectious diseases cause significant human suffering. While most related studies focus on treating patients, Dr. Kevin Lafferty is studying how ecology of the local environment affects transmission of infectious...
Ecology of California's Sandy Beaches
WERC's Dr. Kevin Lafferty studies the food webs of California's sandy beaches, which support a network of wildlife from predators to prey. Species that depend on this habitat include the endangered western snowy plover.
Palmyra National Wildlife Refuge Ecology
Palmyra Atoll is a low-lying coral atoll and National Wildlife Refuge located south/southwest of Hawaii near the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. USGS is a member of the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium, which fosters collaborative multi- and inter-disciplinary studies by U.S. Department of the Interior agencies (USGS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), academic institutions, and non-...
Santa Barbara Field Station
The Santa Barbara Channel area extends from the steep Santa Ynez Mountains on the north to the Channel Islands and adjacent continental shelf on the south and from Point Conception east to the Hueneme submarine canyon. This dynamic landscape, characterized by diverse ecosystems and both urban and rural populations, faces increasing environmental stress due to development, climate change, and...
Kelp Forest Community Ecology
The near shore waters along the coast of southern California host one of the most productive marine ecosystems on earth: giant kelp forests. These complex environments provide habitat, food, and hiding places for more than 1,000 species of plants and animals, but are easily disturbed by both natural events and human activities. Strong storms, fluctuating water temperatures, coastal development...
Densovirus Calculated as Culprit Killing Sea Stars
A prime suspect has been identified as a probable cause of the "Sea Star Wasting Disease," a mysterious epidemic that has been killing these animals in droves along the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Coast. Researchers from Cornell University, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other institutions published their findings on this "sea star associated densovirus (SSaDV)" ...
Does Biodiversity Protect Humans Against Infectious Disease?
Conserving nature can improve human lives. From forest watersheds that perform natural filtration of drinking water to coral reefs that break tsunami waves before they flatten seaside villages, intact ecosystems provide innumerable services to human society. Might biodiversity be healthy for the ecosystem and also protect people against infectious diseases? While most disease ecologists would...
Hourly wave-height observations from 2013 to 2017 at 32 sites throughout the Channel Islands National Park and San Nicolas Island
Hourly wave-height observations at 32 sites throughout the Channel Islands National Park and San Nicolas Island, site-specific hind casts from the Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP), and contemporary wave height, period, and direction from regional buoys taken during intervals between 2013 and 2017.
Hourly wave height and period hindcasts at 32 sites throughout the Channel Islands National Park and San Nicolas Island from 2000-2017
California’s Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) has a hind cast feature that allows one to model hourly height and period at known locations back to 2000. Fitting these hindcasts to observed height and periods indicates that the hindcasts have consistent biases that can be corrected for statistically. Past work generated bias corrections for 32 sites in the Channel Islands....
Site table and bias corrections for Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) hind casts at the California Channel Islands
We present correction coefficients for hourly wave height and period hind casts for 32 sites throughout the Channel Islands National Park and San Nicolas Island. Each site is described in terms of its location, orientation, and transect depth. To use this table, first generate a site-specific wave height and period hind cast using the California Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP)...
Parasite Recruitment and Host Risk in a Snail-Trematode System at Carpinteria Salt Marsh
The project is located at Carpinteria Salt Marsh, part of the University of California Reserve System. The marsh is located at 34.40°N, 119.53°W, which is near the city of Carpinteria, CA. The "exp_recruitment" data set includes information on site name (site), latitude (lat) and longitude (long) of each site, cage number (cage), the number of egg-transmitted (egginf) and...
Monthly trematode infections of the snail Cerithideopsis (Cerithidea) californica at Carpinteria Salt Marsh, California USA, February 2012 to January 2014
Each month (except March 2012), we collected detailed data on the infection status of intertidal snails from ten fixed sites as part of a broader effort to understand food webs in California Estuaries. The study site was Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve, California USA, (University of California Natural Reserve System), which comprises 9 Ha tidal channels, 2 Ha salt flats, 17 Ha upland habitat,...
Distribution and mapping of the snail Cerithideopsis (Cerithidea) californica at Carpinteria Salt Marsh, California USA, June to August 2012
We collected detailed spatial data on the density and size distribution of intertidal snails as part of a broader effort to understand food webs in California estuaries. The survey area was Carpinteria Salt Marsh, California USA, which comprises 9 Ha tidal channels, 2 Ha salt flats, 17 Ha upland habitat, 6 Ha tidal pans, 52 Ha vegetated marsh, 2 Ha tidal flats. Using nearly 4,000 transects in...
Bird distribution surveys at Carpinteria Salt Marsh, California USA, January 2012 to March 2013
We collected spatial data on birds as part of a broader effort to understand food webs in California Estuaries. The survey area was Carpinteria Salt Marsh, California USA, which comprises 9 Ha tidal channels, 2 Ha salt flats, 17 Ha upland habitat, 6 Ha tidal pans, 52 Ha vegetated marsh, and 2 Ha tidal flats. A fixed transect was walked and birds were mapped if they were in the intertidal...
Carpinteria Salt Marsh Habitat Polygons
We identified five common habitat types in Carpinteria Salt Marsh: channels, pans (flats), marsh, salt flat and upland. We then drew polygons around each habitat type identified from a registered and orthorectified aerial photograph and created a GIS shapefile. Polygons were ground-truthed in the field. From these habitat polygons, one can use GIS applications to estimate the area of each...
Species insurance trumps spatial insurance in stabilizing biomass of a marine macroalgal metacommunity
Because natural ecosystems are complex, it is difficult to predict how their variability scales across space and levels of organization. The species‐insurance hypothesis predicts that asynchronous dynamics among species should reduce variability when biomass is aggregated either from local species populations to local multispecies communities, or...
Lamy, Thomas; Wang, Shaopeng; Renard, Delphine; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Reed, Daniel C.; Miller, Robert J. Parasitic copepods (Crustacea, Hexanauplia) on fishes from the lagoon flats of Palmyra Atoll, Central Pacific
We surveyed copepods parasitic on the fishes at Palmyra, a remote atoll in the Central Indo-Pacific faunal region. In total, we collected 849 individual fish, representing 44 species, from the intertidal lagoon flats at Palmyra and recovered 17 parasitic copepod species. The parasitic copepods were: Orbitacolax williamsi on Mulloidichthys...
Soler-Jiménez, Lilia Catherinne; Morales-Serna, F. Neptali; Aguirre-Macedo, Ma. Leopoldina; McLaughlin, John P.; Jaramillo, Alejandra G.; Shaw, Jenny C.; James, Anna K; Hechinger, Ryan F.; Kuris, Armand M.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Vidal-Martinez, Victor M. A strong colonizer rules the trematode guild in an intertidal snail host
We examined the extent to which supply‐side, niche, and competition theories and concepts help explain a trematode community in which one species comprises 87% of the trematode individuals, and the remaining 15 species each have <3%. We collected and dissected the common and wide‐ranging snail host Heleobia australis over four seasons...
Alda, Pilar; Bonel, Nicolas; Cazzaniga, Nestor J.; Martorelli, Sergio R.; Lafferty, Kevin D. Fish culling reduces tapeworm burden in Arctic charr by increasing parasite mortality rather than by reducing density‐dependent transmission
Two common Dibothriocephalus (formerly Diphyllobothrium) tapeworm species were significantly reduced by experimental culling of their fish host Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in a subarctic lake.Between 1984 and 1991, funnel traps were used to cull ~35 metric tons of Arctic charr, reducing charr density by ~80%. As charr...
Henriksen, Eirik H.; Frainer, Andre; Knudsen, Rune; Kristoffersen, Roar; Kuris, Armand M.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Amundsen, Per-Arne Ecosystem function and services of aquatic predators in the Anthropocene
Arguments for the need to conserve aquatic predator (AP) populations often focuses on the ecological and socio-economic roles they play. Here, we summarize the diverse ecosystem functions and services connected to APs, including regulating food webs, cycling nutrients, engineering habitat, transmitting diseases/parasites, mediating ecological...
Gallagher, Austin J.; Hammerschlag, Neil; Schmitz, Oswald J.; Flecker, Alexander S.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Sih, Andrew; Atwood, Trisha B.; Gallagher, Austin J.; Irschick, Duncan J.; Skubel, Rachel; Cooke, Steven J. Detecting southern California’s white sharks with environmental DNA
To improve ability to detect white sharks without the need for tags, or visual census, we developed a species-specific environmental DNA (eDNA) assay that targets a 163 bp fragment of the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) mitochondrial cytochrome B gene on a digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) platform. We used this marker to detect white shark DNA in...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; Benesh, Kasey C.; Mahon, Andrew R.; Jerde, Christopher L.; Lowe, Christopher G. Sea‐level rise, habitat loss, and potential extirpation of a salt marsh specialist bird in urbanized landscapes
Sea‐level rise (SLR) impacts on intertidal habitat depend on coastal topology, accretion, and constraints from surrounding development. Such habitat changes might affect species like Belding's savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi; BSSP), which live in high‐elevation salt marsh in the Southern California Bight. To predict how BSSP...
Rosencranz, Jordan; Thorne, Karen M.; Buffington, Kevin J.; Takekawa, John Y.; Hechinger, Ryan F.; Stewart, Tara E.; Ambrose, Richard F.; MacDonald, Glen M.; Holmgren, Mark A.; Crooks, Jeff A.; Patton, Robert T.; Lafferty, Kevin D. Parasitism and the biodiversity-functioning relationship
Biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning.Biodiversity may decrease or increase parasitism.Parasites impair individual hosts and affect their role in the ecosystem.Parasitism, in common with competition, facilitation, and predation, could regulate BD-EF relationships.Parasitism affects host phenotypes, including changes to host morphology,...
Frainer, André; McKie, Brendan G.; Amundsen, Per-Arne; Knudsen, Rune; Lafferty, Kevin D. Restricted access Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, increases faunal diversity through physical engineering
Foundation species define the ecosystems they live in, but ecologists have often characterized dominant plants as foundational without supporting evidence. Giant kelp has long been considered a marine foundation species due to its complex structure and high productivity; however, there is little quantitative evidence to evaluate this. Here, we...
Miller, Robert J.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Lamy, Thomas; Kui, Li; Rassweiler, Andrew; Reed, Daniel C. Local extinction of the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) following rat eradication on Palmyra Atol
The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, appears to have been extirpated from Palmyra Atoll following rat eradication. Anecdotal biting reports, collection records, and regular captures in black-light traps showed the species was present before rat eradication. Since then, there have been no biting reports and no captures over 2 years...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; McLaughlin, John P.; Gruner, Daniel S.; Bogar, Taylor A.; Bui, An; Childress, Jasmine N.; Espinoza, Magaly; Forbes, Elizabeth S.; Johnston, Cora A.; Klope, Maggie; Kuile, Ana Miller-ter; Lee, Michelle; Plummer, Katherine A.; Weber, David A.; Young, Ronald T.; Young, Hillary S. Unique parasite aDNA in moa coprolites from New Zealand suggests mass parasite extinctions followed human-induced megafauna extinctions
Having split early from Gondwana, Zealandia (now modern New Zealand) escaped discovery until the late 13th century, and therefore remains an important glimpse into a human-free world. Without humans or other land mammals, diverse and peculiar birds evolved in isolation, including several flightless moa species, the giant pouakai eagle (Harpagornis...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; Hopkins, Skylar R. To reduce the global burden of human schistosomiasis, use ‘old fashioned’ snail control
Control strategies to reduce human schistosomiasis have evolved from ‘snail picking’ campaigns, a century ago, to modern wide-scale human treatment campaigns, or preventive chemotherapy. Unfortunately, despite the rise in preventive chemotherapy campaigns, just as many people suffer from schistosomiasis today as they did 50 years ago. Snail...
Sokolow, Susanne H.; Wood, Chelsea L.; Jones, Isabel J.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Kuris, Armand; Hsieh, Michael H.; De Leo, Giulio A.
Have You Seen This Mosquito? Aggressive Mosquito Species Vanishes from Pacific Island
The Asian tiger mosquito can carry dread diseases like Zika, and yellow and dengue fever. After it vanished from Palmyra Atoll, an island in the tropical Pacific, USGS researchers and partners set out to find out why.
A Creative Approach to Controlling a Deadly Snail (NPR, Science Friday)
Ecologist Kevin Lafferty was co-author of a paper that inspired this segment on NPR's Science Friday.
Ecologists Roll a Century’s Work on Food-webs into a Single Model
In a paper released today in Science, a new model presents a common mathematical structure that underlies the full range of feeding strategies of plants and animals: from familiar parasites, predators, and scavengers to more obscure parasitic castrators and decomposers. Now ecologists can view all food-web interactions through the same lens using a common language to understand the natural world.