Research
Research themes
Effects of megafire on insects
The Wog Wog forest fragment experiment was set up back in 1985. Now 30 years later, it's the longest running experiment in temperate forest. The whole site was burned in a in 2020. Funded by , my colleague Kendi Davies (EBIO) and I have been following the population dynamics of hundreds of beetle species for many years before, and now after, the fire. Our work will help managers restore forests impacted by fire. For more on this research, see our beautiful website at .
Spread of invading species
 are a major economic, environmental and health concern. Species like the , , or can transform ecosystems and cost billions of dollars. My colleague  (UC Davis) and I have been using the Tribolium model system to investigate the role of stochasticity in the spatial spread of populations and my colleague  (Colorado State University) and I have been investigating how genetics contributes to this stochasticity. See recent papers in , , , and , and previous papers in Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌý from this work, funded by .
Evolutionary rescue
When a species is introduced to a new place, the population is in a race against time to evolve to the new environment before it goes extinct. This process is called evolutionary rescue. With funding from , my colleague  (Colorado State University) and I have been using the °Õ°ù¾±²ú´Ç±ô¾±³Ü³¾Ìýmodel system together with mathematical models to disentangle the relative contributions of demography and genetics in evolutionary rescue. See our recent paper in and previous papers in Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌý.
Species range limits
For every species, there are limits to where it is found. Understanding what sets range limits and their variability is vital for understanding and forecasting species dynamics. Funded by , and extending our work on single species (above), my colleague  (UC Davis) and I are examining how competition between species interacts with the environment to shape species' ranges. See our recent paper in .
Scaling up ecological dynamics
A vexing question in ecology is how to predict large scale ecological dynamics from small-scale processes. This is especially important since most of our experimental work in ecology happens in small field plots. Often large-scale outcomes contradict small-scale trends from such field plots. We need to understand why this happens so we can make better predictions. I was fortunate to do my graduate work with  (U. Arizona), who is a leader in this area. The basic theoretical principles underlie most of what I do. Here are two representative papers in the journal Ecology from and .