Caves are fascinating ecosystems for a number of reasons. First, they contain depauperate communities made up of a mix of specialized and opportunistic taxa that form relatively simple food webs. Second, they are relatively stable environments, particularly with respect to temperature. Last, they lie at the extreme end of the heterotrophy gradient and are commonly energy-limited because of low supply rates of detrital carbon.

For all these reasons, cave streams are ideal systems in which to ask ecological research questions that deal with bottom-up (energy) limitation of food webs, as well as many others. At UA we are ideally placed to work in these systems. There are more than 4000 caves in Alabama alone. Currently, two of my graduate students are conducting research on cave stream ecology and I hope to expand this program.

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