Jason Rohr Ludmilla F., Stephen J., and Robert T. Galla College Professor & Department Chair

Research Interests: 

My research interests encompass ecology and public health.  I am particularly interested in how anthropogenic changes, mainly pollution, climate change, and alterations to biodiversity, affect wildlife populations, species interactions, and the spread of both wildlife and human diseases. These effects are undoubtedly complex and dependent upon biotic and abiotic conditions. Consequently, my collaborators and I have studied interactions among multiple natural and anthropogenic stressors and are making efforts to integrate our research across disciplines. Our goal is to understand and develop solutions to, environmental problems to enhance the likelihood of a sustainable existence for both humans and wildlife. Much of my wildlife research has focused on amphibians because they are declining globally and much of my human disease work has focused on zoonotic bacteria and schistosomiasis. However, I have worked with a diversity of host taxa and parasite taxa and I tend to be more motivated by interesting questions, syntheses, and the quest for generalities than taxa-specific pursuits. When possible, I try to integrate laboratory experiments, mesocosm studies, field experiments, field surveys, and mathematical models to enhance our understanding of natural systems.

My current and active research interests in ecology fall at the interface of ecotoxicology, conservation biology, and community, population, behavioral, climate change, and disease ecology. My current and active research interests in public health involve understanding drivers of human schistosomiasis, how to feed the projected 11 billion people on the planet sustainably, the impacts of climate change on vector-borne and other zoonotic diseases, the effects of biodiversity on disease risk, and microbiome-infectious disease interactions.

Biography:

• Professor, University of South Florida, FL, Department of Integrative Biology, Patel School of Global Sustainability 2017-2019
• Courtesy Professor, University of South Florida, FL, Department of Global Health 2017-2019
• Associate Chair, Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida, FL 2016-2019
• Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Ecology Research (CIDER), University of South Florida, FL 2016-2019
• Affiliate, Florida Climate Institute 2015-2019
• Associate Professor, University of South Florida, FL, Department of Integrative Biology, Patel School of Global Sustainability 2011-2017
• Assistant Professor, University of South Florida, FL, Department of Integrative Biology, Patel School of Global Sustainability 2007-2011
• Research Associate, Penn State University, PA, Department of Biology, Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State Institutes of the Environment, Department of Entomology, Center for BioDiversity Research 2004-2007
• Post-doctoral Research Associate, University of Kentucky, KY, Department of Biology 2002-2004
• Ph.D., Ecology & Behavior - Binghamton University, NY 2002
• M.A. Teaching Biology - Binghamton University, NY 1997
• B.A. Biology & Environmental Studies (dual degree) - Binghamton University, NY 1996

Selected Publications:

• Cohen, J.M., Sauer, E.L., Santiago, O., Spencer, S., Rohr, J.R. 2020. Divergent impacts of warming weather on disease risk across climates. Science 370: eabb1702
• McMahon, T.A., Sears, B.F., Venesky, M.D., Brown, J.M., Deutsch, K., Halstead, N.T., Lentz, G., Tenouri, N., Young, S., Civitello, D.J., Ortega, N., Fites, J.S., Reinert, L.K., Rollins-Smith, L.A., Raffel, T.R., Rohr, J.R. 2014. Amphibians acquire resistance to live and dead fungus overcoming fungal immunosuppression. Nature 511:224-227
• Rohr, J.R., Schotthoefer, A.M., Raffel, T.R., Carrick, H.J., Halstead, N., Hoverman, J.T., Johnson, C.M., Johnson, L.B., Lieske, C., Piwoni, M.D., Schoff, P.K., Beasley, V.R. 2008. Agrochemicals increase trematode infections in a declining amphibian species. Nature 455: 1235-1239
• Rohr, J.R., Salice, C.J., Nisbet, R.M. 2017. Chemical safety must extend to ecosystems. Science 356: 917
• Rohr, J.R., Barrett, C.B., Civitello, D.J., Craft, M., Delius, B*, de Leo, G., Hudson, P.J., Jouanard, N., Nguyen, K., Ostfeld, R., Remais, J.V., Riveau, G., Sokolow, S., Tilman, D. 2019. Emerging human infectious diseases and the links to global food production. Nature Sustainability 2: 445-456
• Hoover, C.M…Rohr, J.R…De Leo, G.A. 2019. Modelled effects of prawn aquaculture on poverty alleviation and schistosomiasis control. Nature Sustainability 2: 611-620
• Rohr, J.R., Civitello, D.J., Halliday, F.W., Hudson, P.J., Lafferty, K.D., Wood, C.L., Mordecai, E.A. 2020. Towards common ground in the biodiversity–disease debate. Nature Ecology and Evolution 4: 24-33
• Rumschlag, S.L., Mahon, M.B. Hoverman, J.T., Raffel, T.R., Carrick, H.J., Hudson, P.J., Rohr, J.R. 2020. Consistent effects of pesticides on community structure and ecosystem function in freshwater systems. Nature Communications 11: 6333. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20192-2
• Halliday, F.W., Rohr, J.R. 2019. Measuring the shape of the biodiversity-disease relationship across systems: new findings and key gaps. Nature Communications 10: 5032
• Halstead, N.T., Arakala, A., Civitello, D.J., Deleo, G., Gambhir, M., Hoover, C., Johnson, S.A., Jouanard, N., McMahon, T.A., Parker, K., Raffel, T.R., Remais, J., Riveau, G., Sokolow, S., Rohr, J.R. 2018. Agrochemicals increase risk of human schistosomiasis by supporting higher densities of intermediate hosts. Nature Communications 9: 837 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03189-w
• Knutie, S.A., Wilkinson, C.L., Kohl, K.D., Rohr, J.R. 2017. Early-life disruption of amphibian microbiota decreases later-life resistance to parasites. Nature Communications 8: 86. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00119-0
• Cohen, J.M., Lajeunesse, M.J., Rohr, J.R. 2018. A global synthesis of animal phenological responses to climate change. Nature Climate Change 8: 224-228
• Raffel, T.R., Romansic, J.M., Halstead, N.T., McMahon, T.A., Venesky, M.D., Rohr, J.R. 2013. Disease and thermal acclimation in a more variable and unpredictable climate. Nature Climate Change 3: 146-151
• Nguyen, K.H., Boersch-Supan, P.H., Hartman, R.B., Mendiola, S.Y., Harwood, V.J., Civitello, D.J., Rohr, J.R. 2021. Interventions can shift the thermal optimum for parasitic disease transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 118: e2017537118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017537118
• Johansson, M.A…Rohr, J.R.…Hebbeler, A. 2019. An open challenge to advance probabilistic forecasting for dengue epidemics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116: 24268–24274
• Wood, C.L…Rohr, J.R…De Leo, G. 2019. Precision mapping of snail habitat provides a powerful indicator of human schistosomiasis transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116: 23182–23191
• Cohen, J., Civitello, D.J., Brace, A.J., Feichtinger, E., Ortega, N., Richardson, J.C., Sauer, E.L., Liu, X., Rohr, J.R. 2016. Spatial scale modulates the strength of ecological processes driving disease distributions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113: E3359–E3364 doi:10.1073/pnas.1521657113
• Civitello, D.J., Cohen, J., Fatima, H., Halstead, N.T., Liriano, J., McMahon, T.A., Ortega, C.N., Sauer, E., Sehgal, T., Young, S., Rohr, J.R. 2015. Biodiversity inhibits parasites: broad evidence for the dilution effect. Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America 112:8667–8671
• Rohr, J.R., Civitello, D.J., Crumrine, P.W., Halstead, N.T., Miller, A.D, Schotthoefer, A.M., Stenoien, C., Johnson, L.B., Beasley, V.R. 2015. Predator diversity, intraguild predation, and indirect effects drive parasite transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America 112:3008-3013
• McMahon, T.A., Brannelly, L.A., Chatfield, M.W.H., Johnson, P.T.J., Joseph, M.B., McKenzie, V.J., Richards-Zawacki, C.L., Venesky, M.D., Rohr, J.R. 2013. Chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has nonamphibian hosts and releases chemicals that cause pathology in the absence of infection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110: 210-215
• Rohr, J.R., Raffel, T.R. 2010. Linking global climate and temperature variability to widespread amphibian declines putatively caused by disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107: 8269-8274
• Rohr, J.R., Raffel, T.R., Romansic, J., McCallum, H., Hudson, P.J. 2008. Evaluating the links between climate, disease spread, and amphibian declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 105: 17436-17441
• Rohr, J.R., Cohen, J.M. 2020. Understanding how temperature shifts could impact infectious disease. PLoS Biology 18: e3000938.
• De Laender, F., Rohr, J.R., Ashauer, R., Baird, D.J., Berger, U., Eisenhauer, N., Grimm, V., Hommen, U., Maltby, L., Meliàn, C.J., Pomati, F., Roessink, I., Radchuk, V., Van den Brink, P.J. 2016. Re-introducing environmental change drivers in biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31: 905-915
• Rohr, J.R., Dobson, A.P., Johnson, P.T.J., Kilpatrick, A.M., Paull, S.H., Raffel, T.R., Ruiz-Moreno, D., Thomas, M.B. 2011. Frontiers in climate change-disease research. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 270-277
• Rohr, J.R., Kerby, J., Sih, A. 2006. Community ecology theory as a framework for predicting contaminant effects. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21: 606-613
• Halliday, F.W., Rohr, J.R., Laine, A. 2020. Biodiversity loss underlies the dilution effect of biodiversity. Ecology Letters 23: 1611–1622
• Mordecai, E.A., Caldwell, J., Grossman, M., Lippi, C.A., Johnson, L.R., Neira, M., Rohr, J.R., Ryan, S.J., Savage, V., Shocket, M.S., Sippy, R., Stewart Ibarra, A., Thomas, M.B., Villena, O. 2019. Thermal biology of mosquito-borne disease. Ecology Letters 22: 1690-1708
• Rumschlag, S.L., Halstead, N.T., Hoverman, J.T., Raffel, T.R., Carrick, H.J., Hudson, P.J., Rohr, J.R. 2019. Effects of pesticides on exposure and susceptibility to parasites can be generalized to pesticide class and type in aquatic communities. Ecology Letters 22: 962-972
• Cohen, J.M., McMahon, T.A., Ramsay, C., Roznik, E.A., Sauer, E.L., Bessler, S., Civitello, D.J., Delius, B.K., Halstead, N.T., Knutie, S.A., Nguyen, K., Ortega, C.N., Sears, B., Venesky, M.D., Young, S., Rohr, J.R. 2019. Impacts of thermal mismatches on chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis prevalence are moderated by life stage, body size, elevation and latitude. Ecology Letters 22: 817-825
• Rohr, J.R., Civitello, D.J., Cohen, J.M., Roznik, E.A., Sinervo, B., Dell, A.I. 2018. The complex drivers of thermal acclimation and breadth in ectotherms. Ecology Letters 21: 1425–1439
• Civitello, D.J., Fatima, H., Johnson, L.R., Nisbet, R.M., Rohr, J.R. 2018. Bioenergetic theory for host-parasite interactions: A case study with human schistosomes. Ecology Letters 21: 692–701
• Cohen, J.M., Venesky, M.D., Sauer, E.L., Civitello, D.J., McMahon, T.A., Roznik, E.A., Rohr, J.R. 2017. The thermal mismatch hypothesis explains outbreaks of an emerging infectious disease. Ecology Letters 20: 184–193
• Spaak, J.W., Baert, J.M., Baird, D.J., Eisenhauer, N., Maltby, L., Pomati, F., Radchuk, V., Rohr, J.R., Van den Brink, P.J., De Laender, F. 2017. Shifts of community composition and population density substantially affect ecosystem function despite invariant richness. Ecology Letters 20: 1315-1324
• Halstead, N.T., McMahon, T.A., Johnson, S., Raffel, T.R., Romansic, J.M., Crumrine, P.W., Rohr, J.R. 2014. Community ecology theory predicts the effects of agrochemical mixtures on aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem properties. Ecology Letters 17:932-941
• McMahon, T.A., Halstead, N.T., Johnson, S., Raffel, T.R., Romansic, J.M., Crumrine, P.W., Rohr, J.R. 2012. Fungicide-induced declines of freshwater biodiversity modify ecosystem functions and services. Ecology Letters 15: 714-722
• Johnson, P.T.J., Rohr, J.R., Hoverman, J.T. Kellermanns, E., Bowerman, J., Lunde, K.B. 2012. Living fast and dying of infection: Host life history drives interspecific variation in infection and disease risk. Ecology Letters 15: 235-242
• Rohr, J.R., McCoy, K.A. 2010. A qualitative meta-analysis reveals consistent effects of atrazine on freshwater fish and amphibians. Environmental Health Perspectives 118: 20-32
• Rohr, J.R. 2018. Atrazine and amphibians: A story of profits, controversy and animus. In: Dominick A. DellaSala, and Michael I. Goldstein (eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene 5: 141-148
• Mordecai, E.A., Cohen, J.M., Evans, M., Gudapati, P., Johnson, L.R., Miazgowicz, K., Murdock, C.C., Rohr, J.R., Ryan, S.J., Savage, V., Shocket, M., Stewart-Ibarra, A., Matthew, M.B., Weikel, D.P. 2017. Temperature characterizes Zika, dengue and chikungunya transmission potential in the Americas. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 11(4): e0005568. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005568
• Haggerty, C.J.E., Bakhoum, S., Civitello, D.J., De Leo, G.A., Jouanard, N., Ndione, R.A., Remais, J.V., Riveau, G., Senghor, S., Sokolow, S.H., Sow, S., Wolfe, C., Wood, C.L., Jones, I., Chamberlin, A., Rohr, J.R. 2020. Aquatic macrophytes and macroinvertebrate predators affect densities of snail hosts and local production of schistosome cercariae that cause human schistosomiasis. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 14: e0008417 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008417
• Hoover, C.M., Rumschlag, S.L., Strgar, L., Arakala, A., Gambhir, M., de Leo, G., Sokolow, S.H., Rohr, J.R., Remais, J.V. 2020. Effects of agrochemical pollution on schistosomiasis transmission: a systematic review and modeling analysis. Lancet Planetary Health 4: e280–91
• Rohr, J.R., Salice, C.J., Nisbet, R.M. 2016. The pros and cons of ecological risk assessment based on data from different levels of biological organization. Critical Reviews in Toxicology 46: 756-784
• Sears, B.F., Snyder, P.W., Rohr, J.R. 2015. Host life-history and host-parasite syntopy predict behavioral resistance and tolerance to trematode parasites. Journal of Animal Ecology 84:625-636
• Clements, W.H., Rohr, J.R. 2009. Community responses to contaminants: Using basic ecological principles to predict ecotoxicological effects. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 28: 1789-1800
• Rohr, J.R. 2021. The atrazine saga and its importance to the future of toxicology, science, and environmental and human health. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 40: 1544-1558. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5037

Join Notre Dame in the Fight Against Disease, Food, Water, and Energy Shortages, Climate Change, and Biodiversity Losses

Rohr’s lab is attempting to defuse a global crisis by simultaneously and sustainably addressing infectious disease (human schistosomiasis), food, energy, and water issues with a solution that can be scaled throughout the developing world.  See the following 90 second video and 2-page fact sheet covering this work.  His lab is also combatting worldwide declines of amphibians, the most threatened vertebrate taxon on the planet.  They are studying climate change and chytrid fungi associated with these declines, and are developing a vaccine against the chytrid fungus to curb these losses.  Rohr’s lab is also exploring the role of climate change, agricultural development, and biodiversity losses on infectious disease emergence in both wildlife and humans and the effects of chemical pollution on diseases and freshwater ecosystems. 

If you are interested in supporting any of these noble research pursuits, please click on the donate button below.