Department of Zoology: Associate Professor

Contact Information

Kevin S. McCann
ksmccann@uoguelph.ca
(519) 824-4120 ext 56861
Office: Axelrod 274
Lab: Axelrod 272

Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity

Areas of Focus

  • Community/Ecosystem Ecology
  • Biodiversity and Function in Ecological Systems
  • Food Web Ecology
  • Lake and Seagrass Food Webs
  • Natural Resource Management (fisheries)

    • Current and Recent Grad Students

  • Hatton, Ian: M.Sc. - Project: Developing Graphical Decision Analysis Tools in Fisheries
  • Hovius, Jon - Field study of the influence of the spiny water flea on the plankton community of cold water lakes
  • Rip, Jason - Aquatic micorocosm experiments unfolding the influence of food web structure on planktonic community dynamics
  • Teng, Jack: M.Sc. - Project: The role of compartments in food web dynamics
  • Vasseur, David: Ph.D. - Project: The role of abiotic variability in food webs
  • Tewfik, Alex: Ph.D. - Project: Structure and community composition in Caribbean Seagrass Food Webs

    • Post Docs

  • Umbanhowar, James - Projects: (i) The role of mutualism in food webs; (ii) Empirical Analysis of Sub-systems in food webs: Patterns and consequences. Click here to view James' web page.
  • Rooney, Neil - Projects: (i) Persistence and community composition in simple aquatic microcosms; (ii) On the asynchronous production of littoral and pelagic pathways in lake food webs.

    • Education

    • BA Dartmouth College. Hanover, New Hampshire 1987
    • MSc Guelph 1993
    • PhD Guelph 1996

    Teaching

    Community Ecology (ZOO*3120)

    Research Related Web Sites

    Research Interests

    Our lab focuses on the role biodiversity plays in structuring and governing ecological systems. The scientific approach is broadly based and employs a combination of theory, empirical and experimental analysis that requires a highly collaborative research program. Major breakthroughs in ecological understanding require that ecologists separated by traditional scientific divisions begin to communicate. Many of the systems that ecologists seek to understand do not strictly obey scientific boundaries (e.g., aboveground versus belowground, aquatic versus terrestrial), while many of the phenomena of interest simultaneously merge population, community and ecosystem processes (now all largely disparate areas of ecological research). Taken together, our lab seeks to address three major scientific questions: (i) What is the structure that underlies the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems?; (ii) Does this structure influence the stability, function and maintenance of diverse assemblages of species? and; (iii) Does this structure influence the way we manage biological resources? Developing the answers to these important questions places society in a position to interpret how large-scale human perturbations impact the biodiversity and function of ecological systems. People in this lab range from being very mathematical to very field oriented; however, all overlap in that they are interested in developing conceptual advances in ecology.

    Selected Research Publications

    • McCann, K., L. Botsford and A. Hastings. Climatic forcing and the dynamics of some exploited marine populations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, In press.


    • McCann, K., L. Botsford and A. Hastings. Climatic forcing and the dynamics of some exploited marine populations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, In press.


    • Moore, J.C., K.McCann, H. Setala and P. de Ruiter. 2003. Bottom-up is Top-Down: Does Predation in the Rhizosphere Regulate Aboveground Dynamics? Ecology. 84: 846-857.


    • G. Huxel, K. McCann and G.A. Polis. 2002. Effects of partitioning of allochthonous and autochthonous resources on food web stability. Advances in Ecological Research. 17: 419-432.


    • Lee, C., E. Clark, J. diehl, W. gilliland, M. Hoopes, G. huxel, K. McCann, J. Umbanhowar and A. Mogilner. Separation of scales and non-local mathematical models of spatially explicit biological phenomena. 2001. Journal of Mathematical Biology. 210: 201-219.


    • Botsford, L.W., C.A. Lawrence, A. Hastings, K. McCann and M. Hill. 2002. Dynamic response of California Current populations to environmental variability. American Fishery Society Symposium on Climate Change. In Ed. N. A. McGinn. Fisheries in a Changing Climate. American Fisheries Society Symposium 32.


    • McCann, K. The diversity-stability debate. 2000. Nature. 405: 228-233.


    • McCann, K., A. Hastings, S. Harrison and W. Wilson. 2000. Population outbreaks in a discrete world. Theor. Pop. Biol. 57:97-108.


    • Wilson, W., Harrison, S., Hastings, A. and K. McCann. 1999. Stable pattern formation in insect outbreaks. Journal of Animal Ecology. 68: 94-107.


    • Crawford, S. E.K. Balon and K. McCann. 1999. A mathematical technique for estimating blastodisc:yolk volume ratios instead of egg sizes. Environmental Biology of Fishes. 54: 229-234.


    • McCann, K. Hastings, A. and D. Strong. 1998. Trophic cascades and trophic trickles in pelagic food webs. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 265: 205-209.


    • Huxel, G. and K. McCann. 1998. Food web stability: The influence of trophic flows across habitats. American Naturalist. 152: 460-469.


    • McCann, K., A. Hastings and G. Huxel. 1998. Weak trophic interactions and the balance of nature. Nature. 395:794-798.


    • McCann, K. 1998. Density dependent coexistence in fish communities. Ecology. 79:205-216.


    • McCann, K. and P. Yodzis. 1998. On the stabilizing role of stage-structure in piscene populations. Theoretical Population Biology. 54:1-15.


    • McCann, K. and Shuter, B. 1997. The bioenergetics of life history strategies and the comparative allometry of allocation. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 54 (6): 1289-1298.


    • McCann, K. and A. Hastings. 1997. Re-evaluating the omnivory-stability relationship in food webs. Proceedings of the Royal Society: London B. 264: 1249-1254.


    • Hastings, A., S. Harrison, and K. McCann. 1997. Unexpected spatial patterns in insect outbreaks match a singular perturbation model. Proceedings of the Royal Society: London B. 264: 1837-1840.


    • McCann, K. 2001. Balancing nature with weak interactions. Printed in the NSF Decadal Report. (Canada)