William W. Murdoch

I have worked mainly on the dynamics of interacting populations of predator and prey, most recently on California red scale, a worldwide pest of citrus crops and its spectacularly successful biological control organism, an insect parasitoid. Since virtually all species are either eaten by or eat others, or both, the consumer-resource interaction is the central one in ecological communities. Most interactions result in stable populations, whose abundances change relatively little through time, while others are unstable: their populations cycle in abundance, or may even go extinct, at least locally. My colleagues and I have combined experiments in the field and mathematical models to explain a range of particular dynamical interactions, and have used mathematical theory to establish general explanations for these dynamic patterns. Most recently I have been working on applying return-on-investment approaches to conservation.