Dr. Jim Hood

I am the co-director of the Aquatic Ecology Lab at the Ohio State University, where I have been a faculty member since 2016.

I am an ecologist who studies the patterns and fluxes of nutrients and energy in freshwater ecosystems. Explore this website for more details on my interest, projects, and work.

Graduate Students

Lyndsie Collis

Lyndsie is a PhD student who began her time with the Hood Lab as master’s student working on our Iceland project.

For her MS she used stream-side channels to examine how temperature and nutrients interact to influence metabolism and nutrient cycling in streams. Lyndsie joined the lab in Fall 2016 after working as a technician at the Cornell Biological Station.

In her PhD research she is utilizing data from a long-term monitoring effort (Lake Erie Plankton Abundance Survey- LEPAS) to understand how zooplankton productivity has changed over time, and to identify the bottom-up and top-down factors that may be driving these changes. She is also collecting zooplankton samples throughout the ice-free season on Lake Erie and measuring zooplankton-mediated nutrient recycling to understand the contribution of zooplankton nutrient release toward HAB dynamics.

Joe Gentine

Joe is a master’s student who joined the Hood Lab in 2022. He is developing a project that examines how stream flow intermittency influences phosphorus storage in stream networks.

Devan Mathie

Devan is a PhD student who joined the Hood Lab in 2020. He is studying spatial patterns of instream phosphorus sources and sinks in the Maumee River watershed.

He is interested in the role of streams in mitigating or amplifying phosphorus loads to the western basin of Lake Erie and the broader implications for policy and management decisions related to decreasing algal blooms and their impacts in Lake Erie.

Hannah Moore

Hannah joined the Hood Lab as a PhD student in 2019. She is studying reservoir age in partnership with the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Morgan Shaw

Morgan started with the Hood Lab in 2021 as a technician helping on various projects. She transitioned joined the Hood Lab as a PhD student in 2022. Morgan is continuing a project that explores nutrients in sediments in the Maumee watershed.

 

Hood Lab Alums

Amara Huddleston

Amara started at the AEL in Fall 2015 with Dr. Libby Marschall, and Dr. Hood began co-advising her in Fall 2016. She completed her master’s in 2019. Amara’s research focused on understanding how temperature regimes and algal identity interact to influence the growth, development, and fatty acid content of zooplankton species. This is in the context of understanding how cold and warm winters shape spring zooplankton communities in Lake Erie.

Whitney King

Whitney completed her master’s with Dr. Hood in 2020. Her thesis was titled: Instream processes alter the bioavailability of P exports from agricultural watersheds during high flow events.