Research
Research in my lab is centered in landscape ecology, the field that examines the interrelationship between environmental patterns and ecological processes. My students and I have a question-driven research focus and use a broad spectrum of approaches--field studies, computer models, spatial analyses--to answer those questions. We examine a diverse array of topics to address both fundamental and applied ecological questions, not being limited by study organism or setting. Our research is united by a focus on pattern-process relationships.
Research themes of the McIntyre Lab:
We test landscape ecological theory and examine the consequences of landscape change in terms of:
Composition: What environmental features are present and in what amounts?
Configuration: Where and how are features arranged?
Connectivity: How do features alter movement?
Context: How does setting affect pattern-process relationships?
Below are some of the topics on which we are currently working as well as our sources of research support (grants) and research products (publications and presentations).
At the foundation of our research is an examination of organism-environment relationships and how human activities affect those relationships. We are especially interested in how anthropogenic land-cover change induces habitat fragmentation, which alters landscape connectivity, with downstream effects on population demography, community diversity, and disease risk.
Organism-environment relationships
Land-cover mapping & land-cover change
We have ongoing projects in forests, grasslands, and deserts, but the majority of my lab's work has focused on the ~80,000 ephemeral, runoff-fed wetlands in the southern and central Great Plains known as playas that are the main regional source of aboveground freshwater. That research has focused on how playas collectively function as an ecological network and how land-cover change is disrupting structural and functional connectivity within that network for a variety of wildlife species.
Habitat fragmentation
Connectivity
The majority of research in my lab has focused on insects and birds, but we have also examined how reptiles and mammals are affected by land-cover change.
For the past 20+ years, I have been especially interested in members of the insect order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies). Odonates are amphibious predators whose diversity patterns can signal subtle environmental changes.
Birds
Odonates
