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. 

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 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 focuses on the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in grassland ecosystems under global change. My current work primarily focuses on how nutrient availability, herbivory, and drought affect plant communities, microbial communities, and carbon pools in grassland ecosystems.