My research at the Université Paul Sabatier, the University of Washington, and Seattle University has focused on studying food web interactions between native and non-native fish species in freshwater ecosystems. Specifically, I have been using a combination of species distribution modeling, field surveys, and stable isotope analysis to better understand how taxonomic variation influences the trophic diversity of river food webs.

Ecosystems around the globe are threatened by a rapidly changing world. Climate change is influencing arctic species which depend on seasonal ice occurrence, while desert fishes are being decimated by alteration of flow regimes, pollution of waterways, and non-native species. Understanding the drivers of species distributions in our changing landscape is critical for the future conservation of species. I am interested in studying how abiotic and biotic variables influence the persistence or extinction of native species in altered environments.

An emerging conservation concern is that human alteration of natural environments is homogenizing habitats (via urbanization, agricultural development, and flow regime change); potentially driving non-random selection of “winning” and “losing” trait strategies. This could result in functional convergence of disparate communities over time, accompanying regional declines in taxonomic beta-diversity. An area of active research is the study of temporal changes in fish communities’ taxonomic and functional diversity in highly altered flow regimes.