Currently not accepting new graduate students
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1978
My research interests are in understanding and predicting the behavior of complex ecological systems. These interests span the interfaces among physiological ecology, evolutionary ecology, and population biology. Currently, my research is focused in four areas:
(1) Developing theoretical approaches and predictive models for understanding the effects of climate change on natural populations. This involves elucidating the proximal mechanisms whereby environmental variation affects life history and demographic variation in natural populations.
(2) Developing spatially and physiologically structured agent-based models of West Nile virus infection in avian populations and the effects of such infection on avian population dynamics.
(3) Evaluating and refining ecological scaling relationships at the individual level that have potentially large consequences at higher levels of ecological organization. This includes critical evaluation of the mechanistic basis of the "metabolic theory of ecology".
(4) Developing and implementing a set of protocols for evaluating error propagation in ecological models. I also collaborate on projects involving predictive and genetic models in veterinary behavior and behavioral medicine.
Sieg, A.E., O'Connor M.P., McNair J.N., Grant B.W., Agosta S.J. Dunham A.E. 2009 Mammalian metabolic allometry; do intraspecific variation, phylogeny, and regression models matter? American Naturalist 174: 720-733.
Reina, R.D., Spotila, J.R., Paladino, F.V., and Dunham A. E.2008. Changed reproductive schedule of eastern Pacific leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea following the 1997-98 El Niño to La NIña transition. Engangered Species Research doi: 10.3354/esr00098
O’Connor, M. P., S. J. Kemp, S. J. Agosta, F. Hansen, B. P. Wallace, J. N. McNair, and A. E. Dunham. 2007. Reconsidering the mechanistic basis of the metabolic theory of ecology.
Oikos 116: 1058-1072.
O’Connor, M. P., S. J. Agosta, F. Hansen, S. J. Kemp, A. Seig, A., J. N. McNair, and A. E. Dunham. 2007. Phylogeny, regression, and the allometry of physiological traits.
American Naturalist 170: 431-442.
O’Connor, M. P. Seig, A., and A. E. Dunham. 2006. Linking physiological effects on activity and resource use to population level phenomena. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 46: 1093-1109.
O’Connor, M. P. Seig, A., and A. E. Dunham. 2005. Linking physiological effects on activity and resource use to population level effects. Integrative and Comparative Biology45: 1051.
Agosta, S. J. and A. E. Dunham. 2004. Comment on "How the horned lizard got its horns". Science 306: 320A.
Michael J. Angilletta Jr., M. J., P. H. Niewiarowski, A. E. Dunham, A. Leaché, and W. Porter. 2004. Bergmann’s clines in ectotherms: Illustrating a life-history perspective with sceloporine lizards. American Naturalist 164: E168-183.
Angilletta, Michael J. and Arthur E. Dunham. 2003. The temperature-size rule in ectotherms: simple evolutionary explanations may not be general. American Naturalist 162: 332-342.