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. We
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) M
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-trans
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
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
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 inter
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
How to identify win–win interventions that benefit human health and conservation
To reach the Sustainable Development Goals, we may need to act on synergies between some targets while mediating trade-offs between other targets. But what, exactly, are synergies and trade-offs, and how are they related to other outcomes, such as ‘win–win’ solutions? Finding limited guidance in the existing literature, we developed an operational...
Hopkins, Skylar R.; Sokolow, Susanne H.; Buck, Julia C; De Leo, Giulio A.; Jones, Isabel J.; Kwong, Laura H; LeBoa, Christopher; Lund, Andrea J; MacDonald, Andrew J; Nova, Nicole; Olson, Sarah H; Peel, Alison J.; Wood, Chelsea L.; Lafferty, Kevin D. High parasite diversity in the amphipod Gammarus lacustris in a subarctic lake
Amphipods are often key species in aquatic food webs due to their functional roles in the ecosystem and as intermediate hosts for trophically transmitted parasites. Amphipods can also host many parasite species, yet few studies address the entire parasite community of a gammarid population, precluding a more dynamic understanding of the food web....
Shaw, Jenny C.; Henriksen, Eirik H.; Knudsen, Rune; Kuhn, Jesper A.; Kuris, Armand M.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Siwertsson, Anna; Soldánová, Miroslava; Amundsen, Per‐Arne Tradeoffs with growth limit host range in complex life cycle helminths
Parasitic worms with complex life cycles have several developmental stages, with each stage creating opportunities to infect additional host species. Using a dataset for 973 species of trophically transmitted acanthocephalans, cestodes, and nematodes, we confirmed that worms with longer life cycles (i.e. more successive hosts) infect a greater...
Benesh, Daniel P.; Parker, Geoffrey G.; Chubb, James C; Lafferty, Kevin D. A global parasite conservation plan
Found throughout the tree of life and in every ecosystem, parasites are some of the most diverse, ecologically important animals on Earth—but in almost all cases, the least protected by wildlife or ecosystem conservation efforts. For decades, ecologists have been calling for research to understand parasites' important ecological role, and...
Carlson, Colin J.; Hopkins, Skylar R.; Bell, Kayce C; Doña, Jorge; Godfrey, Stephanie S; Kwak, Mackenzie L; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Moir, Melinda L; Speer, Kelly A; Strona, Giovanni; Torchin, Mark; Wood, Chelsea L. A science business model for answering important questions
Perhaps the biggest question in science is how to do better science. Many ecologists, including this book’s editors and authors, have succeeded under the current science “business model” and, from our perspective, the status quo works well enough. But science business models are under increased scrutiny. For instance, since 2012, at least nine...
Lafferty, Kevin D. Looking where it’s hard to see: A case study documenting rare Eucyclogobius newberryi presence in a California lagoon
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is increasingly used for biomonitoring and research of fish populations and communities by environmental resource managers and academic researchers. Although managers are much interested in expanding the use of eDNA as a survey technique, they are sceptical about both its utility (given that information is often...
Dressler, Terra L; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Jerde, Christopher L.; Dudley, Tom L. Models with environmental drivers offer a plausible mechanism for the rapid spread of infectious disease outbreaks in marine organisms
The first signs of sea star wasting disease (SSWD) epidemic occurred in just few months in 2013 along the entire North American Pacific coast. Disease dynamics did not manifest as the typical travelling wave of reaction-diffusion epidemiological model, suggesting that other environmental factors might have played some role. To help explore how...
Aalto, E. A.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Sokolow, S. H.; Grewelle, R. E.; Ben-Horin, Tal; Boch, C. A.; Raimondi, P. T.; Bograd, S. J.; Hazen, E. L.; Jacox, M. G.; Micheli, F.; De Leo, G. A. Disease can shape marine ecosystems
This chapter reviews how marine ecosystems respond to parasites. Evidence from several marine ecosystems shows that parasites can wield control over ecosystem structure, function, and dynamics by regulating host density and phenotype. Like predators, parasites can generate or modify trophic cascades, regulate important foundational species and...
Morton, Joseph P; Silliman, Brian R; Lafferty, Kevin D. Parasites in marine food webs
Parasites have important and unique impacts on marine food webs. By infecting taxa across all trophic levels, parasites affect both bottom-up and top-down processes in marine systems. When host densities are high enough, parasites can regulate or even decimate their populations, causing regime shifts in marine systems. As consumers and resources,...
McLaughlin, John P.; Morton, Dana N.; Lafferty, Kevin D. Dermal denticle assemblages in coral reef sediments correlate with conventional shark surveys
1. It is challenging to assess long-term trends in mobile, long-lived, and relatively rare species such as sharks. Despite ongoing declines in many coastal shark populations, conventional surveys might be too fleeting and too recent to describe population trends over decades to millennia. Placing recent shark declines into historical context...
Dillon, Erin M.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; McCauley, Douglas J.; Bradley, Darcy; Norris, Richard D.; Caselle, Jennifer E.; DiRenzo, Graziella V.; Gardner, Jonathan P.A.; O'Dea, Aaron Towards common ground in the biodiversity–disease debate
The disease ecology community has struggled to come to consensus on whether biodiversity reduces or increases infectious disease risk, a question that directly affects policy decisions for biodiversity conservation and public health. Here, we summarize the primary points of contention regarding biodiversity–disease relationships and suggest that...
Rohr, Jason R.; Civitello, David J.; Halliday, Fletcher W.; Hudson, Peter J.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Wood, Chelsea L.; Mordecai, Erin A. Infection at an ecotone: Cross‐system foraging increases satellite parasites but decreases core parasites in raccoons
Ecotones can increase free-living species richness, but little is known about how parasites respond to ecotones. Here we use parasite communities in raccoons (Procyon lotor) to test the hypothesis that parasite communities can be divided into core and satellite species, each with fundamentally different responses to ecotones. We used published...
Weinstein, Sara B.; Van Wert, Jacey C.; Kinsella, Mike; Tkach, Vasyl V.; Lafferty, Kevin D.
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.