David K. Skelly
Professor of Ecology; Associate Dean for Research; Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Director of Doctoral StudiesDegrees
B.A., Middlebury College; Ph.D., University of Michigan
About
Professor Skelly is interested in understanding the ecological mechanisms of animal distributions and in developing the means to apply that understanding to conservation and management. His studies of amphibians have been directed at determining the causes of patterns such as the extinction and establishment of populations. In order to discover the links among landscape-level distributions, performance across environmental gradients, and the attributes of individual species, he has employed field and laboratory experiments in conjunction with long-term observations of populations and their environment. Current projects include an exploration of forest dynamics as a driver of amphibian population extinctions and an investigation of the role of infectious disease as a cause for amphibian deformities.
