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Ecology, Mathematics, Data Science
Maintaining Earth's biodiversity
In the Melbourne lab we use mathematics and computational algorithms to figure out how best to maintain biodiversity. We also do experiments and collect data to test and verify our theoretical models. Central questions include how species will respond to climate change, why species go extinct, and how invasive species spread.
A more technical description: Our research is in the broad field of . We study the spatio-temporal dynamics of ecological and by developing and connecting these models to data. We're particularly interested in how processes such as competition, predation, and spatial spread interact with spatial and temporal variation in the environment and by randomness intrinsic to individuals. Heterogeneity and stochasticity (a fancy word for randomness) are the technical keywords. We work with and use , , and approaches to connect models to data.
News
- 2023 Evolutionary rescue and the extinction vortex
- 2020 Interspecific competition sets range boundaries
- 2019 Genomic divergence during range expansion
- Â 2017 Long term experimental habitat fragmentation
- Â 2017 Evolution causes variable range expansion
- 2017 Rapid evolution in range expansion
- Â 2016 Metacommunity coexistence mechanisms
- Â 2016 Productivity-diversity mechanisms
- Â 2015 Rescuing species from extinction
- Â 2014 Herbivores and nutrients control diversity
- Â 2011 Productivity-diversity relationship
- Â 2009 Invasive spread (also see ).
- Â 2008 Extinction risk (also see ).
- Â 2007 Diversity-invasibility (top 20 most read paper).
- Rob MacCurdy, Kendi Davies and I awarded funding to quantify insect biodiversity using machine learning.
- Scott Nordstrom awarded postdoc at U British Columbia!
- Kaylee Rosenberger awarded NSF GRFP.
- Anna Spiers awarded postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab!
- Kendi Davies and I awarded NSF funding to .
- Our is out in Ecology.
- Lauren Shoemaker elected of ESA.
- Anna Spiers wins award.
- Lauren Shoemaker and Topher Weiss-Lehman awarded faculty positions at U Wyoming.
- Caroline Tucker awarded faculty position at U North Carolina.
- Geoff Legault  for best student poster in theoretical ecology.