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Ottar Nordal Bjørnstad Depts of Entomology and Biology,  501 ASI Bldg, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802 Tel: (814) 863-2983  e-mail: onb1@psu.edu CV Vital stats Teaching

 

2008 NEWS: The NCF and NLT libraries for R was updated in June 2008 GET CURRENT VERSION

 

2004 NEWS: Visit PSU's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics

 

2004 NEWS: Read about the gravity model for spatial disease spread

See news@nature.com
 

2002 NEWS: View lbm movie (companion to Science 298: 1020-1023)
See [PennState press-releases]

 

2001 NEWS: View measles movie (companion to Nature 414:716-723)

I work in the Departments of Entomology and Biology and at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics of the Pennsylvania State University. My main interests are population ecology/dynamics and ecological epidemiology with particular emphasis on mathematical and computational aspects. I am also an adjunct faculty in the department of Statistics and carry out research in statistical ecology and in methods for analyzing spatiotemporal data. Much of my work is of a collaborative nature working with students, postdocs and faculty locally and across universities worldwide. I currently (or recently) work on the ecology of infectious disease with Bryan Grenfell (no longer at Cambridge;-) and Andy Dobson (Princeton); theoretical and empirical aspects of spatial synchrony in population dynamics with Ben Bolker (U Florida), Sandy Liebhold (USDA Forest service) and Jordi Bascompte (Sevilla); Age-structured dynamics of fish with Jean-Marc Fromentin (IFREMER), Roger Nisbet (UC Santa Barbara) and Nils Stenseth (Oslo); Stage-structured dynamics of insects with Mike Begon and Steve Sait (Liverpool); Spatial dynamics and masting dynamics of plants with Mark Rees (Sheffield) and Eric Seabloom (OSU); and more.

If you wish to be part of any of these studies as a student, postdoc or collaborator: Browse on, check out details on the research and contact me.

My work has several interrelated themes:
(1) Population dynamics – how do the interactions between individuals and between individuals
      and the environment determine fluctuations in abundance?
(2) Interactions between species – how do competition, predation and parasitism affect dynamics?
(3) Spatial dynamics – what causes regional synchrony or asynchrony in fluctuations? What causes
      regional transitions in population dynamics
(4) Ecology of infectious disease – how do host and pathogen characteristics affect  incidence of disease?
Partly as an integral part of (1-4) and partly as a separate research area, I am also interested in the foundations of
confronting theory with data. My fifth theme is
(5) Ecological statistics – how can we test the theories about spatiotemporal variation
     using abundance data?

Details: 1-page summary for prospective students and general interest

Some recent key issues and focal systems
(1) The stage-structured dynamics of the Indian meal moth and its interactions with viral and parasitoid natural enemies (with Mike Begon and Steve Sait)
[life cycle] [publications]
(2) The age-structured dynamics of the atlantic cod: Why both cycles and trends (with Jean-Marc Fromentin, Roger Nisbet and Nils Stenseth)
[the model] [publications]
(3) The nonlinear dynamics of disease dynamics: measles transmission (with Bryan Grenfell)
[Measles: the movie] [the TSIR model][publications]
(4) Spatial dynamics: causes and consequences of synchrony in animal populations (with Jordi Bascompte, Ben Bolker and Andrew Liebhold)
[a model] [publications]
(5) Biogeographic variation in population dynamics: What causes transitions from stability and cyclicity in animal species (with Nils Stenseth)
[the gradient] [publications]

my CV, or from [All Publications]
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