Nancy Knowlton

Email:  nknowlton@ucsd.edu
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.
Phone: 202-633-0668
Fax:    202-357-3043

Dr. Nancy Knowlton, Founding Director of CMBC,  Senior Scientist and Sant Chair in Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  She is Adjunct Professor of Marine Biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

Her research is focused on the ecology and evolution of coral reef organisms, drawing on a variety of techniques, including molecular genetics, field studies, and mathematical modeling. She has worked for many years on the coral reefs of Panama and Jamaica, as well as in the Cape Verde Islands, the Indian Ocean, Brazil and throughout the Caribbean. Her analyses have led to the now widespread recognition that estimates of marine diversity are probably too low by a factor of ten. Her work has been featured by both national and international print, radio and film media.

Radio Ecoshock Ocean Special Program: Knowlton interview
Full 60 minute radio program includes interviews with Ben Halpern and Christian Nellemann

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Ruckelshawus, M., Klinger, T., Knowlton, N., DeMaster, D.  2008 Marine Ecosystem-based Management in Practice: Scientific and Governance Challenges. BioScience 58:1, pp 53-63

Knowlton, N. 2004. Ocean Health and Human Health. Environmental Health Perspectives V112 Issue 5 A262

 Knowlton, N. 2004. Multiple stable states and the conservation of marine ecosystems. Progress in Oceanography 60: 387-396

Knowlton, N. and J. B. C. Jackson. 2001. The ecology of coral reefs. In Marine Community Ecology (M. D. Bertness, S. Gaines and M. E. Hay, eds.). Sinauer, Sunderland, MA, pp. 395-422.

Fukami, H., A. F. Budd, G. Paulay, A. Sol -Cava, C. A. Chen, K. Iwao, and N. Knowlton. 2004. Conventional taxonomy obscures deep divergence between Pacific and Atlantic corals. Nature 427: 832-835.

Knowlton, N. and F. Rohwer. 2003. Multispecies microbial mutualisms on coral reefs: the host as habitat. American Naturalist 162 (Suppl): S51-S62.

Knowlton, N. 2001. The future of coral reefs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98: 5419-5425.

Rohwer, F., M. Breibart, J. Jara, F. Azam and N. Knowlton. 2001. Diversity of bacteria associated with the Caribbean coral Montastraea franksi. Coral Reefs 20: 85-91.

Williams, S. T. and N. Knowlton. 2001. Mitochondrial pseudogenes are pervasive and often insidious in the snapping shrimp genus Alpheus. Molecular Biology and Evolution 18: 1484-1493.

Williams, S. T., N. Knowlton, L. A. Weigt and J. A. Jara. 2001. Evidence for three major clades within the snapping shrimp genus Alpheus inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 20: 375-389.

Toller, W. W., R. Rowan and N. Knowlton. 2001. Zooxanthellae of the Montastraea annularis species complex: patterns of distribution of four taxa of Symbiodinium on different reefs and across depths. Biological Bulletin 201: 348-359

Toller, W. W., R. Rowan and N. Knowlton. 2001. Repopulation of zooxanthellae in the Caribbean corals Montastraea annularis and M. faveolata following experimental and disease-associated bleaching. Biolological Bulletin 201: 360-373.

Knowlton, N. 2000. Molecular genetic analyses of species boundaries in the sea. Hydrobiologia 420: 73-90.

Herre, A., N. Knowlton, U. Mueller and S. Rehner. 1999. The evolution of mutualisms: exploring the paths between conflict and cooperation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14: 49-53.

Lopez, J.V., R. Kersanach, S.A. Rehner, and N. Knowlton. 1999. Molecular determination of species boundaries in corals: genetic analysis of the Montastraea annularis complex using amplified fragment length polymorphisms and a microsatellite marker. Biological Bulletin 196: 80-93.

Doebeli, M. and N. Knowlton. 1998. The evolution of interspecific mutualisms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95: 8676-8680.

Knowlton, N. and L. A.Weigt. 1998. New dates and new rates for divergence across the Isthmus of Panama. Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences 265:2257-2263.

Knowlton, N., J. L. Mate, H. M. Guzman, R. Rowan,and J. Jara. 1997. Direct evidence for reproductive isolation among the three species of the Montastraea annularis complex in Central America (Panama, Honduras). Marine Biology 127: 705-711.

Rowan, R., N. Knowlton, A. Baker, and J. Jara. 1997. Landscape ecology of algal symbionts creates variation in episodes of coral bleaching. Nature 388: 265-269.

Rowan, R. and N. Knowlton. 1995. Intraspecific diversity and ecological zonation in coral-algal symbiosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 92: 2850-2853.

Knowlton, N. and J. B. C. Jackson. 1994. New taxonomy and niche partitioning on coral reefs: jack of all trades or master of some? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9: 7-9.

Weil, E. and N. Knowlton. 1994. A multi-character analysis of the Caribbean coral Montastraea annularis (Ellis and Solander, 1786) and its two sibling species, M. faveolata (Ellis and Solander, 1786) and M. franksi (Gregory, 1895) Bulletin of Marine Science 55:151-175.

Knowlton, N. 1993. Sibling species in the sea. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 24: 189-216.

Knowlton, N., L. A. Weigt, L. A. Solorzano, D. E. K. Mills and E. Bermingham. 1993. Divergence in proteins, mitochondrial DNA, and reproductive compatibility across the Isthmus of Panama. Science 260: 1629-1632.

Knowlton, N. and J. B. C. Jackson. 1993. Inbreeding and outbreeding in marine invertebrates. Pages 200-249 in The Natural History of Inbreeding and Outbreeding (N. W. Thornhill, ed.), University of Chicago Press.

Knowlton, N. 1992. Thresholds and multiple stable states in coral reef community dynamics. American Zoologist 32: 674-682

Knowlton, N., E. Weil, L. A. Weigt, and H. M. Guzman. 1992. Sibling species in Montastraea annularis, coral bleaching, and the coral climate record. Science 255: 330-333.



Most Knowlton publications are available for download in pdf format through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute website http://striweb.si.edu/publications or upon request to: cmbc@ucsd.edu