Overview
Our lab has broad interests, but generally we wonder how organisms cope with environmental change. What enables species to expand their range and move into new habitat? How do populations avert extinction during times of stress? What facilitates adaptation to novel conditions? Historically, we have mainly worked with plants and insects, but we do have a penchant for microbes, too.
Research Focus
Our research group seeks to understand the interplay between evolutionary processes and ecological patterns. Our interests are broad, but lately, we’ve been especially interested in the forces impeding or facilitating adaptation to environmental changes. We’ve worked on things like
- the importance of biotic interactions in constraining species’ geographic distributions
- the role of temporal gene flow in constraining rapid adaptation
- how environmental gradients control the spread of biological invasions
- how temporal environmental variation mediates the formation of species’ range limits
We make use of manipulative field experiments, long-term observational data, controlled laboratory experiments, and theoretical models to gain a more complete understanding of ecological and evolutionary patterns.
Publications
Please see a current list of publications here.