Illinois Natural History Survey - University of Illinois

Joseph F. Merritt
1816 South Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61874
MC–652
Phone: 217-265-7301   Fax: 217-333-4949
Email: jmerritt@illinois.edu
Title: Mammalogist
Office Location: I-BLDG

Activities Joseph F. Merritt is senior mammalogist with the Illinois Natural History Survey. He is the former Director of Powdermill Biological Station of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO during academic year 2004 to 2005. Dr. Merritt is a physiological ecologist and functional morphologist specializing in adaptations of mammals to cold. He is the author of Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Dr. Merritt is also editor of many technical monographs on specific taxa of mammals and the upcoming book, Biology of Small Mammals to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2009. He has served on the Publications Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists since 1990 and is currently the Editor for Special Publications and Mammalian Species and Assistant to the Journal Editor for the ASM. He is Editor for the Western Hemisphere for the journal, Acta Theriologica published by the Polish Academy of Sciences. Dr. Merritt instructs mammalogy at the University of Colorado Mountain Research Station and courses in mammalian ecology and winter ecology at Indiana State University, and at the Adirondack Ecological Center, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Curator INHS Mammal Collection and Co-Curator University of Illinois Museum of Natural History Mammal Collection.


Research
Mammalogy; physiology ecology, adaptations of mammals to cold

Recognition Adjunct Professor: Department of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, SUNY-Syracuse; Department of Biology, University of Pittsburgh; Department of Ecology and Organismal Biology, Indiana State University; Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Professional
affiliations
American Society of Mammalogists
Ecological Society of America
Polish Academy of Sciences

Selected
publications
Merritt, J.F., M.Lima, and F. Bozinovic. 2001. Seasonal regulation in fluctuating small mammal populations: feedback structure and climate. Oikos, 94: 505-514.

Lima, M., J.F. Merritt, and F. Bozinovic. 2002. Numerical fluctuations in the northern short-tailed shrew: evidence of non-linear feedback signatures on population dynamics and demography. Journal of Animal Ecology, 71

Fellman, A., J.D. Peles, and J.F. Merritt. 2003. Lack of allozyme variation witin seven populations of the crayfish Cambarus carinisostris. Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science 76:80-82.

Tchabovsky, A., J.F. Merritt, and D.Y. Aleksandrov. 2004. Ranging patterns of two syntopic gerbillid rodents: a radiotelemetry and trapping study in semi-desert habitat of Kalmykia, Russia. Acta Theriologica 49:17-31.

Merritt, J.F., S. Churchfield, R. Hutterer, and B. Sheftel (eds.). 2005. Advances in the biology of shrews II. Special Publication, International Society of Shrew Biologists, No 01: 1-468. (available online at http://books.lulu.com)

Jaffe, G., D.A. Zegers, M.A. Steele, and J.F. Merritt. 2005. Long term effects of botfly parasitism on Peromyscus maniculatus, P. leucopus, and Tamias striatus. Journal of Mammalogy, 86: 39-45.

Feldhamer, G., L. Drickamer, S.H. Vessey J.F. Merritt, and C. Krajewski. 2007. Mammalogy: Adaptation, Diversity, and Ecology. Third Edition, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 643 pp.


Professional
society
involvement
and activities
American Society of Mammalogists
Polish Academy of Sciences

Education Ph.D. University of Colorado

M. S. University of San Francisco



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Last updated 09/21/09

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