Background: M.A. Anthropology, University of Missouri;  MS(Research), Biology, Saint Louis University; Ph.D., Zoology (Minor - Statistics) Duke University; Post-doctoral Research Associate, Duke University and Mt. Lake Biological Station; Assistant Professor, Biology, University of Missouri-St. Louis; Assistant/Associate Professor, Center for Aquatic Ecology, Illinois Natural History Survey/University of Illinois; Associate Professor/Professor, Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University; Current appointments: Adjunct Professor, Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University. Visiting Scholar, Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, Rutgers University. Reader in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton.

Research Interests:

As a community ecologist, I am interested in processes affecting the structure and dynamics of natural communities. While my focus is on understanding the assembly of natural communities, I work at levels from the population to the metacommunity, and on a range of issues from the role of behavior to the evolutionary aspects of community assembly. I identify and briefly detail the most active components of my research below.

Research Projects:

Habitat selection, community assembly, and metacommunity dynamics.

The role of habitat selection in the assembly of natural communities is an increasingly important theme in ecology. Recent documentation that patterns of species distribution and abundance previously ascribed to differential mortality can be generated by behaviour greatly alters existing views of the dynamics of species interactions in the context of community assembly. At the same time, ecologists and conservation biologists are keenly interested in matters of scale and how processes at scales from local to regional interact to determine community and metacommunity dynamics. Thus, while both local and larger scale regional processes may influence communities, ecologists lack a critical understanding of which processes operate across different scales to influence patterns of species distribution and biodiversity.

Habitat selection in response to interacting species (e.g., predators, competitors) has been documented for numerous taxa in aquatic systems. My work focuses on habitat selection in treefrogs ( Hyla ) and aquatic beetles (Dytiscidae and Hydrophilidae). By generating positive and negative covariances among species distributions, habitat selection has the potential to link processes across multiple scales. Species turnover, changes in local species composition across time and space, has been identified as a critical feature determining variation in trophic structure across complex landscapes. If habitat selection functions at the scale of such species turnover, it can be a primary factor generating variation in trophic/community structure and species composition at the local scale, while operating largely among communities at the regional (metacommunity) scale.

Complex species interactions and ecological character displacement

The competitive exclusion principle states that species with similar ecological requirements will compete for limiting resources, and so are not likely to locally co-exist. However, different abilities to exploit resources (e.g., different morphologies) may foster coexistence and enhance local diversity. Such differences may pre-exist or may arise in contact with ecologically similar forms. The latter phenomenon, known as ecological character displacement (CD), is a logical outgrowth of the competitive exclusion principal. Because of its potential for altering existing forms and generating new forms, CD is one of the most important and perhaps the least understood ecological/evolutionary consequence of species interactions. Its potential for enhancing local and regional diversity has not been thoroughly explored.

My research evaluates the role of CD in species coexistence and local species diversity across a heterogeneous landscape. Extensive field sampling and detailed mechanistic experiments are combined to examine CD in dusky salamanders ( Desmognathus ) occurring in ensembles differing in species richness and composition at local and regional scales across the S. Appalachians (US). The research considers the role of CD in size relationships among species, and in local species richness via species packing.

Recent Publications:

Resetarits, W. J., Jr. 2005. Habitat selection links local and regional scales in aquatic systems. Ecology Letters 8:480-486.

Binckley, C. A. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2005. Habitat selection determines abundance, richness and species composition of beetles in aquatic communities. Biology Letters 1:370-374.

Resetarits, W. J. Jr., C. A. Binckley, and D. R. Chalcraft. 2005. Habitat selection, species interactions, and processes of community assembly in complex landscapes: a metacommunity perspective, pp. 374-398, In Metacommunities: spatial dynamics and ecological communities , edited by M. Holyoak, M. A. Leibold and R. D. Holt, University of Chicago Press .

Resetarits, W. J., Jr. and J. E. Fauth. 2005. Diffuse competition and continuous niche shifts in size-structured populations of predatory salamanders. Community Ecology 6:101-107.

Chalcraft, D. R., C. A. Binckley and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2005. Experimental venue and estimation of interaction strength: Comment. Ecology 86:1061-1067.

Rieger, J. F. , C.A. Binckley, and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2004. Larval performance and oviposition site preference along a predation gradient . Ecology 85:2094-2099.

Chalcraft, D. R. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2004. Metabolic rate models and the substitutability of predator populations. Journal of Animal Ecology 73:323-332.

Resetarits, W. J., Jr., J. F. Rieger and C. A. Binckley . 2004. Threat of predation negates density effects in larval gray treefrogs. Oecologia 138:532-538.

Chalcraft, D. R. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2003. Mapping functional similarity on the basis of trait similarities. American Naturalist 162:390-402.

Binckley, C. A. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2003. Functional equivalence of non-lethal effects: generalized fish avoidance determines distribution of gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis, larvae. Oikos 102:623-629.

Chalcraft, D. R. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2003. Predator identity and ecological impacts: functional redundancy or functional diversity? Ecology 84:2407-2418.

Binckley, C. A. and W. J. Resetarits, Jr. 2002. Reproductive decisions under threat of predation: squirrel treefrog ( Hyla squirella ) responses to banded sunfish ( Enneacanthus obesus ). Oecologia 130: 157-161.

Resetarits, W .J., Jr. 2001. Colonization under threat of predation: non-lethal effects of fish on aquatic beetles, Tropisternus lateralis (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae). Oecologia 129:155-160.

Diana, S.G., W. J. Resetarits, Jr., D.J. Schaeffer , K. B. Beckmen and V. R. Beasley. 2000. Effects of atrazine on amphibian growth, development, and survival in artificial aquatic communities. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 19:2961-2967.

Resetarits, W. J., Jr. and J. Bernardo, editors. 1998/2001. Experimental Ecology: Issues and Perspectives . Oxford , New York . 470 pp.

Created April 2006