Zach Sylvain, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology

Biography

Zach Sylvain is an assistant professor of biology in the Marian University college of Arts and Sciences. He earned a B.Sc. in biology and M.Sc. in entomology from McGill University, and his Ph.D. in ecology from Colorado State University, where he studied the effects of drought on soil organisms at regional/global and local scales in the western US and Antarctica. He was a visiting postdoctoral fellow with the Canadian Forest Service at the Atlantic Forestry Centre in New Brunswick where he studied interactions between and outbreaking insect (spruce budworm) and soil communities, and the role shrub willow planting can play in establishing soil communities during restoration of a surface coal mine. He was then a postdoctoral scientist with the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, where he led a project studying how successful oilfield reclamation efforts have been in restoring rangeland plant, insect and soil communities and potential pitfalls in current reclamation methods. He joined the Marian faculty in 2020, where he will continue to study the effects of environmental changes (especially drought, urbanization, and species invasions) and restoration activities on insects, soil invertebrates and interactions between aboveground and belowground organisms.

Education

• Ph.D. Ecology, Colorado State University, 2013
• M.S. Entomology, McGill University, 2008
• B.S. Biology, McGill University, 2004

Professional affiliations

• Ecological Society of America (2009-present; Soil Ecology and Restoration Ecology sections)
• Soil Ecology Society (2009-present)
• Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (2014-present)
• Acadian Entomological Society (2014-2016)

Courses

• BIO 202 Evolution and Ecology
• BIO 265 Geographic Information Systems
• BIO 373 Zoology

Research interests/portfolio

• Interactions between plants, insects, and soil invertebrates
• Impacts of environmental changes (e.g., drought, urbanization, invasive plants) on invertebrates
• Ecosystem restoration and reclamation
• Long-term ecological research

Publications.

Please contact me via email for a copt of any listed publication of interest which you cannot access.

• Gaskin, JF, Espeland, E, Johnson, CD, Larson, DL, Mangold, JM, McGee, RA, Milner, C, Paudel, S, Pearson, DE, Perkins, LB, Prosser, CW, Runyon, JB, Sing, SE, Sylvain, ZA, Symstad, AJ and Tekiela, DR. (In press) Managing invasive plants on Great Plains grasslands: A discussion of current challenges. Rangeland Ecology & Management.
• Sylvain, ZA, Branson, DH, Rand, TA, West, NM and Espeland, EK. (2019) Decoupled recovery of ecological communities after restoration. PeerJ 7:e7038 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7038.
• Sylvain, ZA, Branson, DH, Rand, TA, West, NM and Espeland, EK. (2019) Oilfield reclamation recovers productivity but not composition of arthropod herbivores and predators. Environmental Entomology 48:299-308.
• Espeland, EK and Sylvain, ZA. (2019) Range size, local abundance and effect inform species descriptions at scales relevant for local conservation practice. Biodiversity and Conservation 28:909-920.
• Sylvain, ZA and Mosseler, A. (2017) Use of shrub willows (Salix spp.) to develop soil communities during coal mine restoration. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 47:1687-1694.
• Vandegehuchte, ML, Sylvain, ZA, Reichmann, LG, de Tomasel, CM, Nielsen, UN, Wall, DH and Sala, OE. (2015) Responses of a desert nematode community to changes in water availability. Ecosphere 6:44.
• Garcia-Palacios, P, Vandegehuchte, ML, Shaw, EA, Dam, M, Post, KH, Ramirez, KS, Sylvain, ZA, de Tomasel, CM and Wall, DH. (2015) Are there links between responses of soil microbes and ecosystem functioning to elevated CO2, N deposition and warming? A global perspective. Global Change Biology 21:1590-1600.
• Sylvain, ZA, Wall, DH, Cherwin, KL, Peters, DPC, Reichmann, LG and Sala, OE. (2014) Soil animal responses to moisture availability are largely scale, not ecosystem dependent: Insight from a cross-site study. Global Change Biology 20:2631-2643.
• Cotrufo, MF, Nguyen, T, Soong, J, Vandegehuchte, ML, Denef, K, Nielsen, UN, Shaw, EA, Sylvain, ZA, de Tomasel, CM, and Wall, DH. (2014) Naphthalene addition to soil surfaces: An effective method to suppress soil micro-arthropods with negligible direct effects on soil C dynamics. Applied Soil Ecology 74:21-29.
• Sylvain, ZA and Wall, DH. (2011) Linking soil biodiversity and vegetation: Implications for a changing planet. American Journal of Botany 98:517-527 (invited).
• Sylvain, ZA and Buddle, CM. (2010) Effects of forest stand type on oribatid mite (Acari: Oribatida) assemblages in a southwestern Quebec forest. Pedobiologia 53:321-325.
• Saint-Germain, M, Buddle, CM, Larrivée, M, Mercado, A, Motchula, T, Reichert, E, Sackett, TE, Sylvain, Z and Webb, A. (2007) Should biomass be considered as a currency in terrestrial arthropod community analyses? Journal of Applied Ecology 44:330-339.