PUBLICATIONS PDFs of all articles available upon request
Peer-reviewed Manuscripts
Johnson, P.T.J., T.E. Stewart Merrill, D.M. Calhoun, T. McDevitt-Galles & B. Hobart. 2023. Into the danger zone: how the within-host distribution of parasites controls virulence. Ecology Letters: in press.
Terrill Sondag, E.E., T.E. Stewart Merrill, J. Drnevich, J.R. Holmes, E.K. Fischer, C.E. Cáceres & L.R. Strickland. 2023. Differential gene expression in response to fungal pathogen exposure in the aquatic invertebrate, Daphnia dentifera. Ecology & Evolution 13: e10354. [article link]
Pine, W.E. III, J. Brucker, M. Davis, S. Geiger, R. Gandy, A. Shantz, T. Stewart Merrill & E.V. Camp. 2023. Collapsed oyster populations in large Florida estuaries appear resistant to restoration using traditional cultching methods– insights from ongoing efforts in multiple systems. Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science: in press.
Cáceres, C.E. & T.E. Stewart Merrill. The role of varying resources on Daphnia dentifera immune responses. Fundamental and Applied Limnology 196:217-228. [article link]
Westphal, G. & T.E. Stewart Merrill. 2022. Partitioning variance in immune traits in a zooplankton host - fungal parasite system. Ecology & Evolution 12: e9640. [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E., C.E. Cáceres, S. Gray, V.R. Laird, Z.T. Schnitzler & J.C. Buck. 2022. Timescale reverses the relationship between host density and infection risk.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.1106. [article link]
Hopkins, S.R., K.D. Lafferty, C.L. Wood, S.H. Olson, J.C. Buck, G.A. de Leo, K.J. Fiorella, J. Fornberg, A. Garchitorena, I.J. Jones, A.M. Kuris, L.H. Kwong, C. LeBoa, A.E. Leon, A.J. Lund, A.J. MacDonald, D.C.G. Metz, N. Nova, A.J. Peel, J.V. Remais, T.E. Stewart Merrill, M. Wilson, M.H. Bonds, A.P. Dobson, D.L. Carr, M.E. Howard, L. Mandle &. S.H. Sokolow. 2022. Diversity and evidence gaps among potential win-win solutions for conservation and human infectious disease control. Lancet Planetary Health 6:e694-e705. [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E., D.M. Calhoun, & P.T.J. Johnson. 2022. Beyond single host, single parasite interactions: quantifying competence for complete multi-host, multi-parasite communities. Functional Ecology: in press. [article link]
Hobart, B., W. Moss, T. McDevitt-Galles, T.E. Stewart Merrill & P.T.J. Johnson. 2022. It's a worm-eat-worm world: Consumption of parasite free-living stages protects hosts and benefits predators. Journal of Animal Ecology 91:35-45 [article link]
Rogalski, M.A., T.E. Stewart Merrill, C.D. Growler, C.E. Cáceres & M.A. Duffy. 2021. Context-dependent host-symbiont interactions: shifts along the parasitism-mutualism continuum. The American Naturalist 198:563-575 [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E., Z. Rapti & C.E. Cáceres. 2021. Host controls of within-host disease dynamics: insight from an invertebrate system. The American Naturalist 198:317-332 [article link] [press coverage]
Stewart Merrill, T.E., S.R. Hall & C.E. Cáceres. 2021. Parasite exposure and host susceptibility jointly drive the emergence of epidemics. Ecology 102:e03245 [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E. & P.T.J. Johnson. 2020. Towards a mechanistic understanding of competence: a missing link in diversity-disease research. Parasitology 147:1159-1170 [article link]
Rapti, Z., T.E. Stewart Merrill, B. Mueller-Brennan, J.H. Kavouras & C.E. Cáceres. 2019. Indirect effects in a planktonic disease system. Theoretical Population Biology 130:132-142 [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E., S.R. Hall, L. Merrill & C.E. Cáceres. 2019. Variation in immune defense shapes disease outcomes in laboratory and wild Daphnia. Integrative & Comparative Biology 59:1203-1219[article link]
Merrill, L., T.E. Stewart Merrill, A. Barger & T.J. Benson. 2019. Avian health across the landscape: nestling immunity covaries with changing landcover. Integrative & Comparative Biology 59:1150-1164 [article link]
Stewart Merrill, T.E. & C.E. Cáceres. 2018. Within-host complexity of a plankton-parasite interaction. Ecology 99:2864-2867 [article link][press coverage]
Rosencranz, J., K.D. Lafferty, K. Thorne, K. Buffington, J. Takekawa, R. Hechinger, T.E. Stewart, R. Ambrose, G. MacDonald, M. Holmgren, J. Crooks & R. Patton. 2018. Sea-level rise, habitat loss, and potential extirpation of a salt marsh specialist bird in urbanized landscapes. Ecology and Evolution 8:8115-8125[article link]
Stewart, T.E., M.E. Torchin & C.E. Cáceres. 2018. Invisible parasites and their implications for coexisting water fleas. Journal of Parasitology 104:101-105 [article link]
Merrill, L., M.F. Naylor, M. Dalimonte, S.McLaughlin, T.E. Stewart & J.L. Grindstaff. 2017. Early-life immune activation increases song complexity and alters phenotypic associations among sexual ornaments. Functional Ecology 31:2263-2273 [article link] [press coverage]
Buck, J.C., R.F. Hechinger, A.C. Wood, T.E. Stewart, A.M. Kuris & K.D. Lafferty. 2017. Host density increases parasite recruitment but decreases host risk in a snail-trematode system. Ecology 98:2029-2038 [article link]
Stewart, T.E. & S.A. Schnitzer. 2017. Blurred lines between competition and parasitism. Biotropica 49:433-438 [article link]
Stewart, T.E. & Merrill, L. 2015. Host sex and parasitism in red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus): examining potential causes of infection biases in a sexually dimorphic species. Canadian Journal of Zoology 92:21-29 [article link]
Merrill, L., T.E. Stewart, P.L. González-Gómez, A.L. O'Loghlen, J.C. Wingfield, V.A. Ellis & S.I. Rothstein. 2015. Epaulet size and current condition in red-winged blackbirds: examining a semistatic signal, testosterone, immune function, and parasites. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 88:11-21 [article link]
Manuscripts under review, in revision, or in advanced stages of preparation
Johnson, P.T.J., T.E. Stewart Merrill, A.D. Dean & A. Fenton. Diverging effects of density and richness across scales help reconcile diversity-disease debates. Nature Communications: in revision.
Rivera Quiñones*, V., T.E. Stewart Merrill*, Z. Rapti & C.E. Cáceres. Modeling transmission at the ecological-immunological interface: an invertebrate disease model with consecutive immune defenses and resource dependence. Journal of Animal Ecology: in review.
Woodhams, D.C., N.B. McDonnell, J.D. Jabon, O.O. Adigun, B.H. Silva, M. Robertson, C.L. Shay, B.C. LaBumbard, D. Wevill, E. Mallory & T.E. Stewart Merrill. Behavioral exposome shapes amphibian disease vulnerability. In revision.
Wilson, P.J., C.E. Cáceres & T.E. Stewart Merrill. The relationship between parasitism and eye size in a freshwater crustacean. In preparation (expected submission: Summer 2023)
McCaffrey, T.D., T.E. Stewart Merrill, B. Hobart & P.T.J. Johnson. Buried alive: interactions between drought, disease, and death in a freshwater snail. In preparation (expected submission: Fall 2023)
Westphal, G.H. & T.E. Stewart Merrill. Differences in die-offs: investigating variation in infection patterns and virulence across the landscape in an oyster-parasite system. In preparation (expected submission: Fall 2023)