I’m a plant ecologists with a special interest in plant-insect interactions. In particular, I study things like floral herbivory, plant defense strategies, and how multiple species use flowers at the same time. Current research projects and planned projects address questions such as:

1. Are there trade-offs between different plant defenses? Most plants have multiple forms of defense, which on the surface seems redundant. One hypothesis for this is that some defenses might be better under some conditions, and there may be trade-offs in terms of which plant defense strategy is best in any given environment.
2. Is geographic variation in defense strategy driven by local adaptation or variation in resource availability? Some of my initial work has found that plants shift which defense strategy they use across a latitudinal gradient, but we don't yet know if this pattern is driven by genetic differences between populations (local adaptation) or by phenotypic plasticity to the environment (variable resource availability).
3. Do below-ground interactions with plants affect pollination? Below-ground interactions with plants are studied much less frequently than above-ground interactions, but have the potential to alter many traits that pollinators care about. It seems likely that below-ground interactions with plants might alter pollinator choice, pollination rates, or other pollination characteristics.
4. Do floral antagonists and/or floral defenses follow geographic patterns? While many studies have investigated leaf herbivory and leaf defenses across latitude, no one has tested the geographic patters of floral defenses and floral antagonisms. Since flowers frequently play an important role in plant reproduction, understanding patterns of damage to flowers and resources spent on floral defense is an interesting problem.

Previous Research