Orlando (Ace) Sarnelle

Associate Professor

PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara 1992

Dept. of Fisheries & Wildlife
Michigan State University
Hickory Corners, MI 49060
Email: sarnelle@msu.edu

Research Interests

I am a limnologist and ecologist with relatively broad interests.  A major theme in my research has been to understand the roles that interactions among aquatic populations (from phytoplankton to fish) play in population and community dynamics within lakes.  I am also interested in how these interactions impact the overall functioning of aquatic ecosystems.  At KBS, I have been collaborating with Steve Hamilton on experimental studies of the interaction between invading zebra mussels and the harmful phytoplankter, Microcystis aeruginosa.  We are currently trying to figure out why zebra mussels seem to have opposite effects on this species in different freshwater systems.  The approach that I take to research questions relies very heavily on field experimentation, and I am very interested in assessing how well such experiments inform us about processes in nature.  More recently, my interests have been moving in the general direction of investigating the consequences of trait variation and adaptive evolution within species as drivers of variation in the strength and direction of species interactions in nature.