Wayne Wurtsbaugh, Ph. D.
Professor, Department of Aquatic, Watershed & Earth Resources
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA

I. Education and Experience

Wayne Wurtsbaugh obtained his B.S. degree from the University of California, Davis, and his M.S. degree in Fisheries from Oregon State University.  He completed his Ph.D. in Ecology from UC Davis, followed by a postdoctoral position at Lake Titicaca in Peru.  In 1983 he joined the faculty in the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University where he is now a professor.  He teaches Limnology, Water Pollution, and Aquatic Ecology Practicum, in which undergraduate students conduct individual or team research projects aimed at understanding the Great Salt Lake.

Dr. Wurtsbaugh’s interests in aquatic systems are broad, ranging from biogeochemistry to fish behavior, and he has worked in lakes and watersheds in South America, Spain, Switzerland and in the western United States.   His research is currently focused on landscape limnology in the Rocky Mountains and on the effects of nutrients and heavy metals on the food web in the Great Salt Lake of Utah.  Other work in the saline lakes has included studies on nitrogen fixation, top-down controls on the food web by invertebrate predators, and production biology of brine shrimp.  He has published more than 100 scientific papers on saline and freshwater lakes.  He was co-chair and editor of an American Society of Limnology and Oceanography workshop on the future of limnology.  He chaired the Education and Human Resources Committee of ASLO and now chairs the Image Library Committee.  He is the head US representative to the Board of International Society of Limnology.  Dr. Wurtsbaugh was a representative to the Salton Sea Integrated Water Management Plan Evaluation Workshop in 2004, and he serves on the State of Utah’s Task Force for the Great Salt Lake.  He is on the Advisory Board of the Friends of Great Salt Lake and he took the lead in that group to organize the 2008 ISSLR meeting in Salt Lake City.  Additional information is available at http://www.cnr.usu.edu/wats/.

II. Selected publications

Wurtsbaugh, W. 1988.  Iron, molybdenum and phosphorus limitation of N₂ fixation maintains nitrogen deficiency of plankton in the Great Salt Lake drainage (Utah, USA).  Verh. Int. Ver. Limnol. 23:121-130.

Wurtsbaugh, W.A.  1992.  Food-web modification by an invertebrate predator in the Great Salt Lake (USA).  Oecologia 89:168-175.

Wurtsbaugh, W.A. and Z. M. Gliwicz.  2001.  Limnological control of brine shrimp population dynamics and cyst production in the Great Salt Lake, Utah.  Hydrobiologia. 466: 119-132.

Marcarelli, A.M., W.A. Wurtsbaugh and O. Griset. 2006. Salinity controls phytoplankton response to nutrient enrichment in the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63:2236-2248.

Lewis, W.M., Jr. and W.A. Wurtsbaugh. 2008. Control of lacustrine phytoplankton by nutrients: Erosion of the phosphorus paradigm. International Review of Hydrobiology 93:446-465.

III. Statement of interest

Saline lakes contain 47% of the volume of the world’s inland waters, yet relative to marine and fresh waters, they receive only limited attention from scientists and the public.  The discrepancy between their prominence and lack of attention is troubling because many of our saline lakes worldwide are threatened by water diversions and pollution.  As an ISSLR board member I would work to focus the attention of scientists, the public and policy makers on these critical systems.  The Society needs to work to increase the size and prominence of its meetings so as to increase communications amongst scientists worldwide in this area, and to focus the public’s attention on the importance of saline lakes.  The society should work to co-sponsor scientific meetings with larger organizations to help bring saline-lake research into the limelight.  Education and outreach should be a growth area in our society.  I would use my experience in scientific, public and NGO organizations to help the society develop in these areas, while at the same time working to maintain the camaraderie of the ISSLR.

Home | About ISSLR | News | Business | Membership | Forum | Directory | Bibliography |  Salt Lakes | Web Links
Website problems? ISSLR Webmaster	© International Society for Salt Lake Research, 2001