Christopher L. Higgins

Research Interests:

Most of my research focuses on freshwater ecosystems, with particular interest in streams and rivers. My research combines experimental and observational approaches to answering questions of ecological origin. In addition, most of my research is quantitative in nature and viewed from an evolutionary perspective. Currently, there are three foci to my research:

Behavioral Ecology - I am interested in the decisions animals make and how their decisions affect population and community dynamics;
Population Ecology - I am interested in knowing how and why population numbers change through time and using mathematical models to predict future changes;
Community Ecology - I am interested in uncovering scale dependent patterns of distribution and abundance of coexisting species.

Selected Publications:

Higgins, C.L. and R.E. Strauss. 2008. Modeling stream-fish assemblages with niche apportionment models: patterns, processes, and scale dependence. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 137: 696-706

Bloch, C.P., C.L. Higgins, and M.R. Willig. 2007. Effects of large-scale disturbance on community structure: temporal trends in nestedness. Oikos 116: 395-406.

Higgins, C.L., M.R. Willig, and R.E. Strauss. 2006. The role of stochastic processes in producing nested patterns of species distributions. Oikos 114: 159-167.

Higgins, C.L. and G.R. Wilde. 2005. The role of salinity in structuring fish assemblages in a prairie stream system. Hydrobiologia 549: 197-203.

Higgins, C.L. and R.E. Strauss. 2004. Discrimination and classification of search paths produced by different search-tactic models. Behavioral Ecology 15: 248-254.

Complete List of Publications

Teaching Portfolio:

Science is not a collection of facts; rather, it is a way of understanding the natural world in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations. This definition of science coincides with how I view teaching. That is, teaching, to me, is not merely imparting knowledge into the minds of students, but also helping them understand the material that is presented. I believe all students are capable of understanding scientific information, and it is my job to ensure that it occurs. To this end, I have created a teaching portfolio, which grows out of the concept that teaching is an integral part of academic scholarship and should be documented as such.

My Teaching Portfolio

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