CIRES Council of Fellows>

William M. Lewis, Jr.

Ph.D., Indiana University at Bloomington, 1973
Director, Center for Limnology
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

E-mail: lewis@spot.colorado.edu
Office: CIRES 266
Phone: 303-492-6378
Web: Center for Limnology

Research Interests

Aquatic ecosystems, tropical fresh waters, biogeochemistry of inland waters, nutrient cycling, aquatic food chains.

Current Research Projects

Estimation of nitrogen yield from watersheds; fate and transport of organic nitrogen in streams and rivers; denitrification in inland waters; studies of trophic dynamics by use of stable isotopes; comparison of tropical and temperate inland waters; nutrient dynamics in inland waters. More about Dr. Lewis' current research projects can be read at the Center for Limnology's Current Research Projects.

Honors and Awards

• Past President, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography
• Member of the National Research Council's Water Science and Technology Board, 1993-1999
• Recipient of the Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Society of Pure and Applied Limnology, 1999
• Sustained Achievement Award of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation, 1996
• Chair, National Research Council Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin (2001-present).

Selected Publications

• Lewis, W. M. Jr. 2002. Causes for the high frequency of nitrogen limitation in tropical lakes. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 28: 210-213.
• Lewis, W. M. Jr. 2001. Wetlands Explained. Wetland Science, Policy, and Politics in America. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
• Lewis, W.M., Jr. 2002. Yield of nitrogen from minimally disturbed watersheds of the United States. Biogeochemistry 57/58: 375-385.
• Lewis, W.M., Jr., S.K. Hamilton, M.A. Lasi, M. Rodriguez, and J.F. Saunders, III. 2001. A foodweb analysis of the Orinoco floodplain based on production estimates and stable isotope data. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 20: 241-254.
• Lewis, W.M. Jr., S.K. Hamilton, M.A. Lasi, M. Rodriguez, and J.F. Saunders, III. 2000. Ecological determinism on the Orinoco floodplain. BioScience 50: 681-692.

Lewis is also one of the CIRES Faculty who teach at the University of Colorado at Boulder with teaching loads equivalent to those of CU faculty rostered solely in departments and programs.