Catherine Pfister, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Ecology and Evolution Committee on Evolutionary Biology Office: Zoology 401A | Phone: 773-834-0071 | Fax: 773-702-9740 | email:cpfister(at)uchicago(dot)edu Subjects:Spatial structure and temporal variability, population viability, stage-structured populations, life histories, fish ecology, marine ecology Click here for a video clip outlining some of my research projects and field sites. Click here for lab web page

Research Interests

My research in ecology has focused on population and community level phenomenon in marine systems. Two recurring themes in my research are the consequences of marine population fluctuations for persistence and the interactions between species and ocean nutrients. Specifically, my interests can be broadly grouped into four areas: (1) identifying the causes and consequences of demographic variability in marine populations, (2) understanding the relative impacts of genetic and demographic factors to extinction risk, (3) the interaction between animal, microbial and algal populations and their relationship to the nitrogen cycle, and (4) the documentation and implications of declining pH in the ocean. All of my research has the further goal of contributing to marine conservation and resource management issues.

My approach to the above topics is pluralistic. I use both laboratory and field experiments to test ecological theory and my methodology incorporates molecular genetic techniques and quantitative techniques as well as long-term data. The questions I ask range from individual consequences to ecosystem responses. For 20 years now, the primary focus of these activities have been in the rocky intertidal of the outer coast of Washington State, primarily Tatoosh Island. I actively involve undergraduates and graduate students in my research and encourage inquiries. I expect graduate students in my lab to be facile in (and enthused about) both empirical and theoretical approaches to ecology and evolution.

Click here for more information on my research.

Selected Publications

1992. Pfister, C. A. The cost of reproduction in an intertidal kelp:  patterns of allocation and life history consequences. Ecology 73:1586-1596.

1995. Pfister, C. A. Estimating competition coefficients from census data: a test with field manipulations of tidepool fishes.  The American Naturalist 146:271-291.

1996. Pfister, C. A. and A. Bradbury. Harvesting red sea urchins:  recent effects and future predictions. Ecological Applications 6:298-310.

1996. Pfister, C. A. Consequences of recruitment variation in an assemblage of tidepool fishes.  Ecology 77:1928-1941.

1998. Pfister, C. A. Patterns of variance in stage-structured populations:  evolutionary predictions and ecological implications.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 95:213-218.

2002. Pfister, C. A. and F. R. Stevens. The genesis of size variability in plants and animals. Ecology 83:59-72.

2003. Pfister, C. A. and S. D. Peacor. Variable performance of individuals:  the role of population density and endogenously formed landscape heterogeneity.  Journal of Animal Ecology 72:725-735.

2005. Doak, D. F., W. F. Morris, C. A. Pfister, B. Kendall, E. Bruna. Correctly estimating how environmental stochasticity influences fitness and population growth. The American Naturalist 166:E-note.

2005. Pfister, C. A. and M. Wang. Beyond size:  matrix projection models for populations where size is an incomplete descriptor.  Ecology 86:2673-2683.

2006. Kusumo, H., C.A. Pfister, J. T. Wootton. Small-scale genetic structure in the sea palm Postelsia palmaeformis, Ruprecht (Phaeophyceae). Marine Biology 149:731-742.

2006. Pfister, C. A. Concordance between short-term experiments and long-term censuses in tidepool fishes: a competition-colonization trade-off? Ecology 87:2905-2914

2006. Morris, W. F. , S. Tuljapurkar, C.V. Haridas, E.S. Menges, C. C. Horvitz, and C.A.  Pfister.  Sensitivity of the population growth rate to demographic variability within and between phases of the disturbance cycle. Ecology Letters 9:1331-1341.

2007. Pfister, C. A. Tidepool mussels locally increase nutrients and algal growth. Ecology 88:1647–1653.

2007. Pfister, C. A., J. T. Wootton, C. Neufeld. The relative roles of coastal and oceanic processes in determining physical and chemical characteristics of an intensively sampled nearshore system. Limnology & Oceanography. 52: 1767-1775.

2008. W. F. Morris, C. A. Pfister, S. Tuljapurkar, C. Haridas, C. Boggs, M. S. Boyce, E. M. Bruna, D. R. Church. T. Coulson, D. F. Doak, S. Forsyth, J. M. Gaillard, C. C. Horvitz, S. Kalisz, B. E. Kendall. T. M. Knight. C. T. Lee, E. S. Menges. Longevity can buffer plant and animal populations against changing climatic variability. Ecology 89:19-25.

Wooton, J. T., Pfister, C.A., Forester, J.D., 2008. Dynamical patterns and ecological impacts of ocean pH in a high-resolution, multi-year dataset. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:18848-18853.