Staff Profile
Steven J. Presley

Postdoctoral Fellow

Phone: (860) 486-1772
Fax: (860) 486-1753
Email: steven.presley@uconn.edu

Curriculum Vitae

List of projects, publications and presentations (link)

Education
2004. Ph.D. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.  Department of Biological Sciences. Dissertation title: Ectoparasitic assemblages of Paraguayan bats: ecological and evolutionary perspectives.
1994. M.S. Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois.  Department of Biological Sciences. Masters thesis title: Small mammals of McDonough County, Illinois.
1991. B.S. Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois.  Department of Biological Sciences. Undergraduate thesis title: Comparison of the use of transponder chips and toe clips in a mark recapture study of the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus).

Research Interests
My research focuses on community and population ecology of bats and arthropod ectoparasites of bats.  The majority of my current research is divided into two interrelated approaches: 1) using data collected from Brazil and Peru to investigate effects of anthropogenic activities (i.e., small scale subsistence farming in the case of Iquitos, Peru and large scale reduced-impact logging in the case of Tapajós, Brazil) on bat populations and assemblages and 2) using ectoparasite populations and assemblages from bats of Paraguay as model systems to explore potential mechanism that mold patterns of abundance, species richness, and biodiversity on host populations and species.  Both areas of research employ traditional (e.g., equilibrium theory of island biogeography, more individuals hypothesis, random placement theory, species-area relationships) and recent (e.g., general unified theory of gradients, neutral theory of biodiversity) ecological theories in an attempt to understand the spatial and temporal scales at which particular mechanisms drive patterns of species richness and diversity.  Whereas the research involving ectoparasites is more theoretical and heuristic in nature, research on bats in the Amazon basin attempts to apply those same theories to conservation problems.