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
The rise and fall of infectious disease in a warmer world
Now-outdated estimates proposed that climate change should have increased the number of people at risk of malaria, yet malaria and several other infectious diseases have declined. Although some diseases have increased as the climate has warmed, evidence for widespread climate-driven disease expansion has not materialized, despite increased...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; Mordecai, Erin A. Revisiting Paine’s 1966 sea star removal experiment, the most-cited empirical article in the American Naturalist
“Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity” (Paine 1966) is the most-cited empirical article published in the American Naturalist. In short, Paine removed predatory sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus) from the rocky intertidal and watched the key prey species, mussels (Mytilus californianus), crowd out seven subordinate primary space-...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; Suchanek, Tom Environmental change makes robust ecological networks fragile
Complex ecological networks appear robust to primary extinctions, possibly due to consumers’ tendency to specialize on dependable (available and persistent) resources. However, modifications to the conditions under which the network has evolved might alter resource dependability. Here, we ask whether adaptation to historical conditions can...
Strona, Giovanni; Lafferty, Kevin D. Global assessment of schistosomiasis control over the past century shows targeting the snail intermediate host works best
Background Despite control efforts, human schistosomiasis remains prevalent throughout Africa, Asia, and South America. The global schistosomiasis burden has changed little since the new anthelmintic drug, praziquantel, promised widespread control. Methodology We evaluated large-scale schistosomiasis control attempts over the past century and...
Sokolow, Susanne H.; Wood, Chelsea L.; Jones, Isabel J.; Swartz, Scott J.; Lopez, Melina; Hsieh, Michael H.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Kuris, Armand M.; Rickards, Chloe; De Leo, Giulio A. Intraguild predation by shore crabs affects mortality, behavior, growth, and densities of California horn snails
The California horn snail, Cerithideopsis californica, and the shore crabs, Pachygrapsus crassipesand Hemigrapsus oregonensis, compete for epibenthic microalgae, but the crabs also eat snails. Such intraguild predation is common in nature, despite models predicting instability. Using a series of manipulations and field surveys, we...
Lorda, J.; Hechinger, R.F.; Cooper, S. D.; Kuris, A. M.; Lafferty, Kevin D. Complementary approaches to diagnosing marine diseases: a union of the modern and the classic
Linking marine epizootics to a specific aetiology is notoriously difficult. Recent diagnostic successes show that marine disease diagnosis requires both modern, cutting-edge technology (e.g. metagenomics, quantitative real-time PCR) and more classic methods (e.g. transect surveys, histopathology and cell culture). Here, we discuss how this...
Burge, Colleen A.; Friedman, Carolyn S.; Getchell, Rodman G.; House, Marcia; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Mydlarz, Laura D.; Prager, Katherine C.; Sutherland, Kathryn P.; Renault, Tristan; Kiryu, Ikunari; Vega-Thurber, Rebecca The role of competition – colonization tradeoffs and spatial heterogeneity in promoting trematode coexistence
Competition – colonization tradeoffs occur in many systems, and theory predicts that they can strongly promote species coexistence. However, there is little empirical evidence that observed competition – colonization tradeoffs are strong enough to maintain diversity in natural systems. This is due in part to a mismatch between...
Mordecai, Erin A.; Jaramillo, Alejandra G.; Ashford, Jacob E.; Hechinger, Ryan F.; Lafferty, Kevin D. Marine disease impacts, diagnosis, forecasting, management and policy
As Australians were spending millions of dollars in 2014 to remove the coral-eating crown of thorns sea star from the Great Barrier Reef, sea stars started washing up dead for free along North America's Pacific Coast. Because North American sea stars are important and iconic predators in marine communities, locals and marine scientists alike were...
Lafferty, Kevin D.; Hofmann, Eileen E. Fishing diseased abalone to promote yield and conservation
Past theoretical models suggest fishing disease-impacted stocks can reduce parasite transmission, but this is a good management strategy only when the exploitation required to reduce transmission does not overfish the stock. We applied this concept to a red abalone fishery so impacted by an infectious disease (withering syndrome) that stock...
Ben-Horin, Tal; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Bidegain, Gorka; Lenihan, Hunter S. Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease? Reply
The dilution effect is the sort of idea that everyone wants to be true. If nature protects humans against infectious disease, imagine the implications: nature's value could be tallied in terms of human suffering avoided. This makes a potent argument for conservation, convincing even to those who would otherwise be disinclined to support...
Wood, Chelsea L.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; DeLeo, Giulio; Young, Hillary S.; Hudson, Peter J.; Kuris, Armand M. Ontogenetic dynamics of infection with Diphyllobothrium spp. cestodes in sympatric Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus (L.) and brown trout Salmo trutta L.
The trophic niches of Arctic charr and brown trout differ when the species occur in sympatry. Their trophically transmitted parasites are expected to reflect these differences. Here, we investigate how the infections of Diphyllobothrium dendriticum and D. ditremum differ between charr and trout. These tapeworms use copepods as their first...
Henrickson, Eirik H.; Knudsen, Rune; Kristoffersen, Roar; Kuris, Armand M.; Lafferty, Kevin D.; Siwertsson, Anna; Amundsen, Per-Arne Mapping physiological suitability limits for malaria in Africa under climate change
We mapped current and future temperature suitability for malaria transmission in Africa using a published model that incorporates nonlinear physiological responses to temperature of the mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae and the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. We found that a larger area of Africa currently experiences the...
Ryan, Sadie J.; McNally, Amy; Johnson, Leah R.; Mordecai, Erin A.; Ben-Horin, Tal; Paaijmans, Krijn P.; Lafferty, Kevin D.