Current Lab members

Research Interests: Nitrogen deposition, carbon dioxide emissions, and species invasions and extinctions are occurring at continental and global scales.  These complex changes can control disease risk, agricultural production, and species conservation.  I want to understand how these global changes are altering ecological communities and ecosystem processes. My interests are wide-ranging, but much of the empirical work in my lab involves grassland plants, insects, microbes, and disease. 

Research Interests: I am a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota. My research focuses on the interactions between plant communities and their heterotroph consumers such as fungal pathogens and insect herbivores, how those interactions are shaped by global change and what the consequences of those interactions are for ecosystem functioning. I have investigated the effects of plant community composition on fungal pathogen abundance both in grasslands and in agricultural fields in the past and am now focusing on the role of the heterotroph consumers in shaping plant community composition and nutrient cycling at Cedar Creek. 

I am interested in understanding how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning and stability under global change drivers. My research focuses on how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning (BEF) and stability under global change. My current projects focus on how plant diversity and species interactions affect community elemental homeostasis under changes in resource availability. My previous projects involve overyielding (one of the BEF), effects of nutrient enrichment and their cessation, ecosystem C:N:P stoichiometry, herbivore grazing, camera trap studies, wildlife conservation, etc. Stay tuned via my personal website.  

I am a visiting PhD student from China, currently conducting research in the Borer/Seabloom lab. My interests revolve around investigating the intricate relationships among biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and invasibility. Specifically, my research focuses on understanding the biotic and abiotic factors influencing species invasions in global grassland ecosystems, particularly under the pressures of eutrophication.   

I am an evolutionary biologist that is slowly becoming an ecologist. I'm interested in grassland ecosystem functioning, particularly in response to anthropogenic alterations. Currently, I am exploring how microbial activity changes in response to eutrophication.    

Research Interests: My research interests span a broad array of basic and applied topics in community ecology including the community ecology of diseases, biological invasions, and restoration ecology. The following are some major research themes: Community ecology of disease; Consumer and resource control of productivity, diversity, and invasibility of communities and ecosystem; Invasion and restoration of grasslands; Invasions and coastal geomorphology and protection; and Behavior- and consumption-mediated effects of consumers on plant communities.

Research Interests: My research interests mainly focus on (1) the effects of nutrient availability and herbivory on plant community composition and functioning;  (2) the changes in plant traits in response on environmental changes; and (3) the effects of eutrophication on soil physical and chemical properties, microorganisms, and nematode in grassland.  I actively engage in the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research and the stability and asynchrony research to restore terrestrial ecosystems.  I put forward the original theory of space resource utilization (SRU) to accurately and nondestructively predict changes in species richness in response to human activities.