John Romansic
Post-doctoral Student
Contact
Office: SCA 322
Phone: 813/974-6180
Email:
Links
Education
B.A. Integrative Biology and English, University of California, Berkeley, 1999
Ph.D. Zoology, Oregon State University, 2007
Research
My research concentrates on investigating how multiple agrochemicals combine to influence the community ecology of wetlands. I am focusing on algae, zooplankton, aquatic snails and insects, amphibians, and trematodes that parasitize amphibians and examining how they are directly and indirectly affected by mixtures of pesticides and excess nutrient and whether these effects are analogous to the effects of food web manipulations. This project will evaluate the usefulness of the well-developed body of food wed theory to help us predict the community-level effects of environmental contaminants. My long-term professional goal is to examine how evolution of virulence in pathogens and parasites is influenced by ecological factors and how this influence may be exploited by virulence management to reduce the impact of infectious diseases on humans and reduce the risk of catastrophic disease epidemics in the human population.
Recent Publications
Romansic, J.R., Higashi, E.M., Diez, K.A., Blaustein, A.R. Susceptibility of newly-metamorphosed frogs to a pathogenic water mold (Saprolegnia sp.). Herpetological Journal. (in press)
Garcia, T.S., Romansic, J.M., Blaustein, A.R. 2006. Survival of three species of anuran metamorphs to UV-B radiation and the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatadis. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. 72:163-169
Romansic, J.M., Diez, K.A., Higashi, E.M., Blaustein, A.R. 2006. Effects of nitrate and the pathogenic water mold Saprolegnia on survival of amphibian larvae. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. 68:235-243
Johnson, P.T.J., Preu, E.R., Sutherland, D.R., Romansic, J.M., Han, B., Blaustein, A.R. 2006. Adding infection to injury: synergistic effects of predation and parasitism on amphibian malformations. Ecology. 87:2227-2235
Blaustein, A.R., Romansic, J.M., Scheessele, E.A. 2005. Ambient levels of UV-B cause mortality in juvenile western toads, Bufo boreas. American Midland Naturalist. 154:375-382
Blaustein, A.R., Romansic, J.M., Scheesele, E.A., Han, B.A., Pessier, A.P., Longcore, J.E. 2005. Interspecific variation in susceptibility of frog tadpoles to the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Conservation Biology. 19:1460-1468
Blaustein, A.R., Han, B., Fasy, B., Romansic, J., Scheesele, E., Anthony, R.G., Marco, A., Chivers, D.P., Belden, L.K., Kiesecker, J.M., Garcia, T.S., Lizana, M. and Kats, L.B. 2004. Variable breeding phenology affects the exposure of amphibian embryos to ultraviolet radiation and Optical characteristics of natural waters protect amphibians from UV-B in the U.S. Pacific Northwest: a comment. Ecology. 85:1747-1754
Blaustein, A.R., Romansic, J.M., Kiesecker, J.M., Hatch, A.C. 2003. Ultraviolet radiation, toxic chemicals, and amphibian population declines. Diversity and Distributions. 9:123-140