The focus of my research program is to understand the importance of spatial dynamics to communities and populations, examining ideas that are central to biodiversity maintenance and conservation. 1. Do traits of beetle species and their short term responses predict their extinction risk after 23 years of habitat fragmentation? Is there an extinction debt? How well does metacommunity theory describe community disassembly? This work is set within the Wog Wog habitat fragmentation experiment in southeastern Australia. The project is funded by NSF. 2. How does spatial heterogeneity in the environment affect the invasibility of communities and the risk of extinction of resident native species? 3. Can we use phylogenetic diversity (a proxy for niche differences between species) to help us understand how native and exotic species coexist? Do different mechanisms operate at different spatial scales? Are heterogeneity in the environment and site productivity important?
keywords
Community ecology; persistence of species and communities in heterogeneous, fragmented, and disturbed landscapes; extinction, invasion and community assembly
