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Lab:
541-737-5527 Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331-2914
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Research interests
I
am interested in the ways in which trophic interactions and resource
productivity influence community composition. My approach to
understanding communities lies at the interface between quantitative
ecological
theory and real systems. 
Communities
and stoichiometry:
Fossil
fuel combustion, agricultural runoff, and
eradication of predators affect all ecological systems. Although my
empirical
research is in terrestrial systems, much of my work quantifies the
impacts of
altered nutrient availability (i.e. bottom-up effects) and consumers
(i.e.
top-down effects) among ecosystems, including lakes, grasslands, and
kelp
forests, by compiling and analyzing data from published ecological
studies. I am involved
in a variety of collaborative projects employing cross-system
meta-analysis and development of general theory to examine the
independent and interacting effects of these global changes in predator
numbers and nutrient supply rates on community composition,
interactions among species, and energy flow.
Communities and disease: Although
direct pathogen-host interactions are
often well-described, my work in this area focuses on the comparatively
less-studied effects
of predation, competition, and resource availability on disease
dynamics. I am currently studying the
long-term implications of an aphid-vectored disease, barley yellow
dwarf virus, on West Coast grassland community composition in
collaboration with several researchers (Eric
Seabloom - OSU, Sunny Power -
Cornell, Charles
Mitchell - UNC, and Andy
Dobson and Parviez
Hosseini - Wildlife Trust). We
are developing theory and empirically testing it to examine the
indirect influence of the abiotic environment on host (grass), vector
(aphid), and pathogen (BYDV) dynamics. We are using this work to
generate predictions about other vectored diseases, such as malaria,
Lyme
disease, and West Nile virus.
Nutrient Network: Even though
two of the
most globally-pervasive human impacts are alteration of global budgets
of the resources that limit
primary
production and changes in the abundance and identity of consumers,
there have been no globally
coordinated
experiments to quantify the general impacts of these perturbations on
ecological
systems. I am
collaborating with Eric
Seabloom, John Orrock, Mendy Smith,
Stan Harpole, and Peter Adler to
develop and coordinate this
grassroots research effort composed of more than 50 sites and 70
collaborators worldwide. These Nutrient
Network, or NutNet, participants are performing coordinated,
long-term
experimental research to gain a general understanding of the
extent to which
multiple resource limitation and consumers influence community dynamics
and
ecosystem functioning.
Other research areas: My other
ongoing projects include examining the
role of
intraguild predation in structuring communities, where and why trophic
cascades occur, mechanisms of
coexistence in biological control, and top-down and bottom-up effects
in food
webs, and the outcome of interactions among different types of
consumers, like vertebrates and invertebrates (e.g. cows and
caterpillars), in grasslands.
I
have done quite a bit of work sorting apart the mechanisms of
coexistence
of two
parasitoids: Aphytis melinus and Encarsia
perniciosi. These are 
two
parasitoid wasps involved in
biological
control of
Links
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Nutrient Network information, protocols, etc.
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Lab Data Repository
-
(relatively current) CV
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If you want a letter of recommendation from me, please read this
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Lab website
Graduate students
-
Sean Moore
-
Cara Benfield
-
Kelly Farrell
-
Tony Graziani has accepted an Assistant Professor position at Santa Rosa Junior College. Congrats, Tony! We'll miss you.
Available Reprints (.pdf)
2009
Borer,
E. T., C. E. Mitchell, A. G. Power, and E. W. Seabloom.
2009. Consumers indirectly increase infection
risk in grassland food webs. Proceedings of the
Borer, E.
T., V.
19(5):1187-1196. Check out
these cool authors: *
University Honors
College thesis advisees; ‡ NSF
Research Experience for Undergraduates; † High school teacher funded by
a grant from the Murdock Foundation
Borer,
E. T., and D. S. Gruner. 2009.
Top-down and bottom-up
regulation of communities. pp. 296-304 in S. A. Levin, S. R. Carpenter,
H. C.
J. Godfray, A. P. Kinzig, M. Loreau, J. B. Losos, B. Walker,
and D. S. Wilcove,
eds.
Bakker,
E.G., K. Eide,
B. Montgomery, T. Nguyen, J. Chang, T. Mockler, A. Liston, E. W.
Seabloom, and E.
T. Borer. 2009. Strong
population structure and worldwide selective sweeps characterize
weediness gene
evolution in the invasive grass species Brachypodium
distachyon. Molecular
Ecology.
Barseghian, D., I. Altintas, M.B. Jones, D. Crawl, N. Potter, J. Gallagher, P. Cornillon, M. Schildhauer, E.T. Borer, E.W. Seabloom, P.R. Hosseini. 2009. Workflows and extensions to the Kepler scientific workflow system to support environmental sensor data access and analysis. Ecological Informatics. doi:10.1016/j.ecoinf.2009.08.008
Cebrian, J., J.B. Shurin, E.T. Borer, B.
Cardinale, J. Ngai, M.D. Smith, and W. Fagan. 2009.
Producer nutritional quality controls
ecosystem trophic structure. PLoS
ONE 4(3):
e4929.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0004929.
Hillebrand,
H., E.T. Borer, M. E. S. Bracken, B. J. Cardinale, J.
Cebrian, E. E.
Cleland, J. J. Elser, D.
Moore, S.M., E.T. Borer,
and P.R. Hosseini. 2009. Predators can indirectly control
vector-borne disease:
linking predator-prey and host-pathogen models. Journal of
the Royal Society Interface
Seabloom, E.W., E. T. Borer, A. Jolles, and
C.E. Mitchell. 2009. Direct and indirect
effects of viral pathogens and the environment on invasive grass
fecundity in
Seabloom,
E.W., E.T. Borer, C.E. Mitchell, and A.G. Power.
2009. Effects
of host identity, environment, and community context on pathogen
prevalence and
within-host diversity. Ecology.
Seabloom, E.
W., E. T. Borer, B.A. Martin, J. L. Orrock.
2009. Effects of long-term consumer
manipulations on invasion in oak savannah communities. Ecology 90(5):1356-1365.
Seabloom, E.
W., P. R. Hosseini, A. G. Power, E.
T. Borer. 2009. Diversity and
composition of viral communities: coinfection of barley and cereal
yellow dwarf
viruses in
2008
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.
Bracken,
E.T. Borer, B.M. Bolker. 2008. A
cross-system synthesis of consumer and nutrient resource control on
autotrophic
biomass. Ecology
Letters 11:740-755.
Check
out the cover photos including Andrews LTER
2007
Borer,
E. T., C. J. Briggs, and R. D. Holt.
2007. Predators, parasitoids, and pathogens: a cross-cutting
examination
of intraguild predation theory. Ecology
88(11): 2681-2688.
This paper is part of an Ecology Special
Feature. Read Jay
Rosenheim's
introduction to this Special Feature.
Borer,
E. T., P. R. Hosseini, E. W. Seabloom, A. P. Dobson.
2007. Pathogen-induced reversal of native
perennial dominance in a grassland community.
Proceedings of the
Hillebrand, H., D.S.
Gruner, E.T. Borer, M.E. Bracken,
E.E. Cleland, J.J. Elser, W.S. Harpole, J.T. Ngai, E.W. Seabloom, J.B.
Shurin, and
J.E. Smith. 2007.
Community structure and ecosystem productivity mediate the
intrinsic control of producer diversity across major
ecosystem types. Proceedings
of the
2006
Borer, E. T. 2006. Does
adding biological detail increase
coexistence in an intraguild predation model? Ecological Modelling 196:
447-461.
Borer, E. T., B. S. Halpern, and E. W. Seabloom. 2006. Asymmetry in community regulation: effects of predators and productivity. Ecology 87(11): 2813-2820.
2005
Borer,
E. T., E. W. Seabloom, J. B. Shurin, K. E. Anderson, C. A. Blanchette,
B.
Broitman, S. D. Cooper, B. S. Halpern. 2005. What determines
the strength of a trophic cascade?
Ecology
86(2): 528-537.
Briggs,
C. J. and E. T. Borer. 2005. Why short-term
experiments may not allow long-term predictions about
intraguild predation. Ecological
Applications. Ecological
Applications 15(4):1111-1117.
Halpern,
B. S., E. T. Borer, E. W.
Seabloom, J. B. Shurin. 2005. Predator effects on herbivore
and plant stability. Ecology Letters
8: 189-194.
Malmstrom,
C. M., A. J. McCullough, H.
A.
Johnson, E. T. Borer. 2005. Invasive annual
grasses
indirectly increase virus incidence in California native perennial
bunchgrasses.
Oecologia 145(1):153-164.
Snyder,
R. E., E. T. Borer, P.
Chesson. 2005. Examining the
relative importance of spatial
and non-spatial
coexistence mechanisms. The
American Naturalist 166(4): E75-E94.
2004
Borer,
E. T., W.W. Murdoch, and
S.L. Swarbrick. 2004. Parasitoid coexistence: Linking spatial
field
patterns with mechanism. Ecology
85(3):667-678.
Gram,
W.
K., E. T. Borer, K. L.
Cottingham, E. W. Seabloom, V. L. Boucher, L. Goldwasser, F.
Micheli,
B. E.
Kendall, and R. S. Burton. 2004. Distribution of plants in
a
2003
Borer,
E. T., C. J. Briggs, W.W. Murdoch, and S.L.
Swarbrick. 2003. Testing intraguild predation theory in a
field
system: Does numerical dominance shift along a gradient of
productivity? Ecology
Letters 6:929-935.
Seabloom,
E. W., E. T. Borer,
V. Boucher, K. L. Cottingham, W. K. Gram, B. E. Kendall, L. Goldwasser,
F.
Micheli, and R. S. Burton. 2003. Competition, seed
limitation,
disturbance, and reestablishment of
2002
Borer,
E. T. 2002. Larval competition
of guild members: implications for coexistence
via intraguild predation. Journal
of Animal Ecology 71: 957-965.
Borer,
E. T., K. Anderson, C. A.
Blanchette, B. Broitman, S. D. Cooper, B. Halpern, E. W. Seabloom, J.
B.
Shurin. 2002. Topological approaches to food web analyses:
a few
modifications may improve our insights. Oikos
99: 398-403.
Shurin,
J. B., E. T. Borer, E. W.
Seabloom, K. Anderson, C. A. Blanchette, B. Broitman, S. D. Cooper, B.
Halpern. 2002. A cross-ecosystem comparison of the strength
of
trophic cascades. Ecology
Letters 5:785-791.
2000
Collins,
J. P., A. P. Kinzig,
N. B. Grimm, W. F. Fagan, D. Hope, J. Wu, and E. T. Borer. 2000. A new
urban
ecology. American Scientist
88: 416-425
(.pdf file does not include figures).
Find out more about
the National Center for Ecological
Analysis and Synthesis, where I did a postdoc.
