People

I am researching the processes that maintain biodiversity and the consequences of biodiversity for ecosystem function. In particular, I am using a moss-microarthropod ecosystem to investigate how dispersal rate between habitat patches interacts with synchronicity of disturbance across the landscape to influence biodiversity and community resilience. My experiment will test the 'spatial insurance' hypothesis, which predicts that asynchronous disturbance and intermediate dispersal rates maintain maximal levels of biodiversity, community biomass and stability. In addition to providing an important test of ecological theory, this work will contribute knowledge useful in landscape management for ecosystem services and conservation. I am also participating in a collaborative experiment with Jiichiro Yoshimoto and Youhua Chen investigating the effect of regional biodiversity and landscape connectivity on soil microarthropod community resilience to drought disturbance.