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Contact Information:
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Connecticut 75 N. Eagleville Rd., Unit 3043 Storrs, CT 06269-3043
Phone: 860-486-6113 Lab: 860-486-6154 Fax: 860-486-6364 |
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Research interests |
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Both communities and populations are made up of different types, be they genotypes or species, that are continually being selected for or against in the local environment while at the same time being redistributed among different patches through migration. In this way, migration can determine both the potential for species interactions and the potential for local adaptation by affecting the degree to which locally adapted types persist or are swamped by gene flow and immigration.
The evolution of interconnected and interacting populations has been termed the evolving metacommunity. Research in this area is uncovering exciting outcomes about the organization of communities that would not be predicted by a purely ecological or evolutionary perspective alone. In general, I think that this interface between landscape ecology, community ecology, and evolutionary biology remains an exciting and largely unexplored scientific frontier. |
Evolutionary ecology of metacommunities |
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I am studying how prey populations persist across landscapes of heterogeneous predation risks. Across New England, many amphibians face a predation risk gradient that entails a shift between predominantly gape-limited and gape-unconstrained predators. I have been working to understand how local salamander prey populations have evolved in response to variation in gape-limited predation risk. These experiments suggest that local prey populations have evolved in response to local gape-limited predation risk. At the same time, significant maladaptation characterizes some populations, suggesting that the combined effects of local selection and regional gene flow determine variation in prey life history traits.
I am currently interested in understanding how these adaptations not only affect the persistence of the focal salamanders species, but also their ecological interactions with the rest of the community and how selection by multiple predator species affects the evolution of prey defenses. |
Predator-prey interactions in ponds |
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A species range forms one of the most fundamental quantities in ecology. Yet, we still have much to learn about the mechanisms that underlie range expansion, retraction, and stasis. Biological invasions offer one way to understand the mechanistic determinants of species ranges and to apply evolutionary ecology to pressing conservation issues. I am currently collaborating with Australian researchers to understand the underlying mechanisms of range expansion dynamics in the invasive cane toad in Australia. Our research suggests that once an invasive species has spread across a sufficiently large and heterogeneous landscape, its further range expansion may be aided by local adaptation.
I am also interested in understanding how evolutionary and ecological dynamics alter community responses to climate change. Results from a dynamic evolutionary model suggest that species coexistence over spatial and temporal environmental gradients depends on an interaction between migration and adaptation. |
Evolution of species ranges |
