John Couture

Active Mentor - currently hosting PULSe students for laboratory rotations and recruiting PULSe students into the laboratory; serves on preliminary exam committees

Current Research Interests:

Research in the Couture lab has four focal themes:

1) integrating chemical and landscape ecology to advance our understanding of the influence of trophic-level interactions on ecosystem functioning ​

2) examining the influence of environmental change on plant and insect ecology, across multiple levels of biological organization, to better understand how ecosystems will function in future environments

3) advancing the ability of hyperspectral data to characterize plant chemical and metabolic profiles

4) utilizing spectroscopy to improve precision agriculture

Work in my lab combines analytical chemistry, hyperspectral and remote sensing technology, field-based measurements, manipulative experiments, and statistical modeling  to test basic ecological theory, ultimately providing a better understanding of ecosystem functioning.

Selected Publications:

Couture JJ, Meehan TD, Rubert-Nason KF, Lindroth RL (2017) Effects of elevated carbon dioxide and ozone on foliar quality of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) and paper birch (Betula papyrifera). Journal of Chemical Ecology 43:26-38.

Couture JJ, Singh A, Rubert-Nason KF, Serbin SP, Lindroth RL, Townsend PA (2016) Spectroscopic determination of ecologically relevant plant secondary metabolites. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 7:1402-1412. 

Couture JJ, Mason CJ, Habeck CW, Lindroth RL (2016) Behavioral and morphological responses of an insect herbivore to low diet quality are inhibited by plant chemical defenses. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 10:341-349.

Couture JJ, Serbin SP, Townsend PA (2015) Elevated temperature and periodic water stress alter growth and quality of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and monarch (Danaus plexippus) larval performance. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 9:149-161.

Couture JJ, Meehan TD, Kruger EL, Lindroth RL (2015). Insect herbivory alters impact of atmospheric change on northern temperate forests. Nature Plants 15016.

Couture JJ, Serbin SP, Townsend PA (2013) Spectroscopic sensitivity of real-time, rapidly induced phytochemical change in response to damage. New Phytologist 198:311-319.