B.A., Biology, Hanover College, 1962.
Ph.D., Biology Department, University of Chicago, 1969.

Hanover College Alumni Achievement Award, 1983.
Hanover College Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, 1992.

Ecology and systematics of aquatic snakes in the old-world tropics

Ecology and systematics of aquatic snakes in the old-world tropics/ecological and life history interactions of pedunculate barnacles and decapod crustaceans/comparisons of old-world tropical rain forest amphibian and reptile communities.

In fresh water swamps and marine estuaries in Borneo and Thailand, in collaboration with colleagues and students, I am exploring how aquatic snakes budget their activities between the two major life zones, land and water. In these semi-aquatic tropical habitats there are assemblages of snakes belonging to several independent lineages that have evolved aquatic habits. Each lineage represents an independent evolutionary experiment and each species within each lineage, an example of how life activities can be partitioned between these two life zones. Through comparisons between lineages, and among species within lineages, we are gaining insights into the reasons why these fundamentally terrestrial vertebrates have re-invaded the sea so often through evolutionary history.

In the Straits of Johore between Malaysia and Singapore and along the coast of southern Thailand we are studying ecological and life history interactions between small goose barnacles and their hosts, marine crabs and sea snakes. Our work has focused on mechanisms of colonization and details of the life history of the barnacle larvae, cyprids and adults. Most recently we have published a study that explores the relationships among the degree of plate armament on different species of these barnacles, the types of host they select, and the locations on the hosts that they colonize.

In the lowland tropical rain forests of Borneo, Robert Inger and I maintain a long-standing interest in the natural changes that occur from place to place and through time in communities of amphibians and reptiles. Recently our findings have been applied to the issue of world-wide declining amphibian populations, and we have both foreign and domestic graduate students working on amphibian populations in Borneo.