Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
B.A. St. Olaf College
Current Research and Teaching
Graduate students in ecology and population biology pursue questions concerning interactions among species and determinants of population size, the relative abundance of species within communities, evolutionary responses to predation and competition, and the evolution of population schedules for birth and death.
Mosquitoes that develop within treeholes receive close attention in this lab because they occupy a community of manageable size and are relatively easy to manipulate in the field and laboratory. Students in my lab are currently studying invasions of container-breeding mosquitoes in North America and Bermuda. We have the genereal aim of testing for effects of species interactions on native species in North America and for interspecies competition between two invading species in Bermuda. Students are also studying adaptation by Aedes albopictus to its new environmental surroundings in North America.
With the help of dozens of school groups, involving thousands of students throughout the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states, we have organized the Labor Day Mosquito Count. This project aims to quantify the impact of the invading Asian mosquito, Aedes albopictus, on the native treehole-breeding mosquito, Ochlerotatus triseriatus.
In collaboration with the Bermuda Department of Health, we are working to develop an extensive and detailed data base to trace the course of the reinvasion of the islands by Aedes aegypti (1998) and colonization by Aedes albopictus since 2002.
Vitek, C. J. and T. Livdahl. 2006. Field and laboratory comparison of hatch rates in Aedes albopictus (Skuse). J. Amer. Mosq. Contr. Assn. 22: 609–614.
Dennehy, J. and T. Livdahl. 2004. Polymorphic foraging behavior among C. elegans: frequency- and density-dependent selection. J. Nematology 36: 276-280.
Dennehy, J., P. Robakiewicz, and T. Livdahl. 2001. Larval rearing affects kin-mediated cannibalism in a treehole mosquito. Oikos 95: 335-339.
Edgerly, J.S., Willey, M.S., and T. Livdahl. 1999. Intraguild predation among larval treehole mosquitoes, Aedes albopictus, Ae. Aegypti, and Ae. triseriatus (Diptera: Culicidae), in laboratory microcosms. Journal of Medical Entomology 36: 394-399.
Edgerly, J.S., McFarland, M., Morgan, P., and T. Livdahl. 1998. A seasonal shift in egg-laying behaviour in response to cues of future competition in a treehole mosquito. J. Anim. Ecol. 67: 805-818.
Edgerly, J.S., Willey, M., and T. Livdahl. 1993. The community ecology of Aedes egg hatching: Implications for a mosquito invasion. Ecological Entomology 18: 123-128.
Edgerly, J.S., and T. Livdahl. 1992. Density-dependent interactions within a complex life cycle: The roles of cohort structure and mode of recruitment. J. Anim. Ecol. 61: 139-150.
Livdahl, T., and M. Willey. 1991. Prospects for an invasion: Competition between Aedes albopictus and native A. triseriatus. Science 253: 198-191.
Livdahl, T., and J. Edgerly. 1987. Hatching inhibition: Field evidence for population regulation in a treehole mosquito. Ecological Entomology 12: 395-399.
Livdahl, T. 1982. Competition within and between hatching cohorts of a treehole mosquito. Ecology 63: 1751-1760.