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 | Biography |  |
Plant Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Climate Change Biology My research broadly focuses on the effects of human activities on plant communities. More specifically my research falls into three categories:
1) Plant community structure and function in fragmented tropical ecosystems.
2) Effects of agricultural production on native plants, insects and their interactions.
3) The role of life-history strategies in maintaining plant species under habitat fragmentation and climate change.
My research in the first category includes field-based studies of plant species and functional diversity, landscape analyses and theoretical studies of community assembly.
In the second category, my research covers two subtopics. First, I am interested in how landscape structure and agricultural practices impact the pollination of crops by native insects. Second, I am interested in the adaptation of native weed species in response to rice and cane field conditions and how these adapting populations interface with and change surrounding native plant communities.
My research in the third category has to date focused on annual plant species in Mediterranean grass and shrub land communities. I am primarily interested in how life-history traits, such as germination strategy, growth form, breeding system and dispersal contribute to plant species’ abilities to persist locally or shift their ranges under “rapidly” changing environmental conditions. These “rapidly” changing conditions include human-induced climate change at the slow end and fragmentation and the introduction of exotic species on the fast end. Within the context of this research I study both evolutionary and ecological processes.
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