Greg Cronin, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Research Interests: Aquatic Ecology

Plants produce the food that maintains food-webs, and provide much of the structure that microbes, fungi, and animals call home.  I study interactions that aquatic plants (both freshwater and marine) have with herbivores, and their role in mediating ecosystem functions.  These plants and the ecosystems where they are found provide services that humans rely upon. I am interested in how natural and anthropogenic disturbance influence these services with the goal that such understanding will allow better management, remediation, and protection of important aquatic habitats.

Select Publications:

• Cronin, G. J. H. McCutchan, J. Pitlick, and W.M. Lewis, Jr.  2007. Use of Shields stress to reconstruct and forecast changes in river metabolism. Freshwater Biology 52: 1587-1601.
• Schlacher T. and G. Cronin.  2007. A trophic cascade in a macrophyte-based food web at the land–water ecotone. Ecological Research 22: 749-755.
• Cronin, G., W.M. Lewis, Jr., and MA Scheisher. 2006. Influence of freshwater macrophytes on the littoral ecosystem structure and function of a young Colorado reservoir. Aquatic Botany 85: 37-43.
• Stearns, M., J. A. Tindall, G. Cronin, M. J. Friedel and E. Berquist. 2005. Effects of Coal-Bed Methane Discharge Waters on the Vegetation and Soil Ecosystem in Powder River Basin, Wyoming, Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 168: 33-57.
• Cronin G, and D. M. Lodge. 2003. Effects of light and nutrient availability on the growth, allocation, carbon/nutrient balance, phenolic chemistry, and resistance to herbivory of two freshwater macrophytes. Oecologia 137: 32-41.
• Cronin, G. 2001. Resource allocation in seaweeds and marine invertebrates: Chemical defense patterns in relation to defense theories.  In: J.B McClintock and B.J. Baker (eds.) Marine Chemical Ecology.  CRC Press. 325-353.

Education

• Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, 2005-2006, Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, FL
• Postdoctoral Associate/Concurrent Asst. Professor, 1995-1997, University of Notre Dame
• Visiting Scientist, 1997-1998, Center for Limnology, CIRES/Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
• Ph.D., 1994. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Curriculum in Marine Sciences
• B.A., 1989. University of Kansas, highest distinction, Biochemistry and Chemistry

Courses Taught

• BIOL 3412 Fundamentals of Applied Ecology (Spring)
• BIOL 3520 Invertebrate Zoology (rarely)
• BIOL 4416/5416 Aquatic Ecology (Fall )
• BIOL 4050 Marine Biology (Fall)
• BIOL 5445 Applied Environmental Biology (Spring )