The goal of my lab’s research is to mechanistically understand and predict the consequences of human impacts such as global warming and habitat fragmentation on populations, communities, and ecosystems. We use mathematical, statistical, and computational approaches, and I collaborate widely with field and laboratory workers to explain observations and confront theory with data. Past work has examined systems including the Amazon, estuaries and lakes, soil, geothermally heated streams, marine systems, and experimental aquatic mesocosm and microbial systems, and has focussed at scales from local to global. Specific interests include: variation in and causes of food web and community structure; inference for mechanistic ecological models and prediction in ecology; metapopulation synchrony and its causes; historic patterns of habitat loss and their present-day consequences; climate warming, competition, and body size shifts in ectotherms; marine biodiversity and biogeography; climate change, demography, and extinction risk.
