KEVIN HIGGINS

Kevin Higgins

Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
803-777-7444
email (@biol.sc.edu): higgins

The dynamics of ecological and evolutionary processes.

My research interests are at the intersection of ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. I am particularly focused on integrating these disciplines to produce a more complete picture of the dynamics of populations, metapopulations, and entire species. My approach uses mechanistic mathematical models based on life history, explicit genetics and the environment to investigate how such factors influence populations and the evolutionary process.

Specifically, I am interested in synergistic interactions between population dynamics and population genetics; how spatial structure influences the extinction process, the mutation accumulation process, and inbreeding depression; the impact of epistasis on mutation accumulation; the role of linkage disequilibrium in creating spatial patterns of viability; the role of life history in determining the probability of extinction of endangered species; and mechanistic approaches to population viability analysis.

Selected Publications:

K. Higgins and M. Lynch. (2001) Metapopulation extinction caused by mutation accumulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98: 2928-2933.

C. F. Baer, J. Travis, and K. Higgins. (2000) Experimental evolution in Heterandria formosa, a livebearing fish: group selection on population size. Genetical Research, 76: 169-178.

K. Higgins. (1999) The impact of age-, space-, and stochastic-structure on the extinction probability of a chinook salmon metapopulation. Natural Resource Modeling, 12: 65-108.

K. Higgins, A. Hastings, J. N. Sarvela, and L. W. Botsford. (1997) Stochastic dynamics and deterministic skeletons: Population behavior of Dungeness crab. Science, 276: 1431-1435.

K. Higgins, A. Hastings, and L. W. Botsford. (1997) Density dependence and age structure: Nonlinear dynamics and population behavior. American Naturalist, 149: 247-269.

A. Hastings, and K. Higgins. (1995) Chaos and scale. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 10: 335-335.

A. Hastings, and K. Higgins. (1994) Persistence of transients in spatially structured ecological models. Science, 263: 1133-1136.

B. C. Monger, J. M. Fischer, B. A. Gratham, V. Medland, B. Cai, and K. Higgins. (1997) Frequency response of a periodically forced three trophiclevel food chain model with time delayed recruitment: implications for abiotic-biotic coupling., in Structured-Population Models in Marine, Terrestrial and Freshwater Systems, S. Tuljapurkar and H. Caswell (eds.), New York : Chapman & Hall.

L. W. Botsford, C. L. Moloney, A. Hastings, J. L. Largier, T. M. Powell, K. Higgins and J. F. Quinn (1994) The Influence of Spatially and Temporally Varying Oceanographic Conditions on Meroplanktonic Metapopulations. Deep Sea Research Part II - Topical Studies in Oceanography, 41: 107-145.

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