Associate ProfessorEmail: email@example.com
Office: 308A Aiken Center
Areas of Interest
Aquatic biogeochemistry (lake and stream), microbial food webs, algal ecology, remote sensing of algal blooms, development of models to predict the vertical distribution of algae in lakes, and a paleolimnological assessment of Lake Champlain's community structure and trophic status over the past 400 years
I grew up in Western Washington, where I attended Newport High School in Bellevue and Western Washington University, Fairhaven College, in Bellingham. My graduate degrees were from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg for work I did in the Experimental Lakes Area, northwestern Ontario, with David W. Schindler. This included a whole-lake radiotracer study of phosphorus cycling and mesocosm experiments to examine the impact of N:P supply ratio on phytoplankton community structure and biogeochemistry. My first scientific position was as a research associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I managed William M. Lewis's field station in Venezuela and conducted studies of N fixation in Lake Valencia. I also lectured at the University of Denver. I then spent several years at Cornell University, first at the Ecosystems Research Center, where I mostly researched aquatic ecotoxicology, and then in Microbiology, where I studied the microbiology of deep aquifers.
I have been a professor at the University of Vermont since 1992. My research here has involved further studies of nitrogen fixation, analysis of riverine P spiriling, food web and nutrient limitation studies in Lake Champlain, examination of stable isotope patterns in lakes, remote sensing of cyanobacterial blooms, and paleolimnological study of lake response to changing land use. I spent a sabbatical year in New Zealand in 2000 examining the impact of resuspended sediments on zooplankton feeding in Lake Waihola.
I teach courses in Limnology, Stream Ecology, Wetlands Ecology and Management, and Integrating Analyses of Natural Resource Issues and serve as Chair of RSENR's M.S. concentration Aquatic Ecology and Watershed Science.
Ph.D. 1982 University of Manitoba (whole-lake phosphorus cycling and the relationship between N:P supply ratio and cyanobacterial blooms)
M.S. 1976 University of Manitoba
Levine, S.N., R.F. Zehrer, and C.W. Burns. 2005. Impact of resuspended sediments on zooplankton feeding in Lake Waihola, New Zealand. Freshwater Biology. 50: 1515-1536.
Ferber, L.R., S.N. Levine, A. Lini, and G. Livingston. 2004. Do cyanobacteria dominate in eutrophic lakes because they fix atmospheric nitrogen? Freshwater Biology. 49: 690-708.