I am a broadly trained community ecologist interested in how interactions between consumers and their resources affect ecosystem structure and function.
My research aims to understand biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships. I focus on how animal functional diversity affects nutrient cycling in coastal, esturine, and desert environments.
Current Projects:
- Burrowing crab effects on coastal wetland functions along successional gradients.
- Top-down effects of consumers on biological soil crust functions.
- Cascading effects of prey physiological stress responses on consumer-biological soil crust interactions.
- Effects of climate-driven shifts in predator communities on prey behavior and population dynamics.
- Evaluating the recovery trajectories of ecosystem functions in restored and created tidal wetlands along the northern Gulf of Mexico.
- Viewing ecological field studies through the lens of environmental ethics.
