Nathan Kraft

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. Starting July 2012.

Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2009- present.

University of California, Berkeley, December 2008, Ph.D. Integrative Biology. Advisor: David Ackerly. "Functional trait and phylogenetic-based tests of community assembly in an Amazonian forest."

Organization for Tropical Studies, 2006. Tropical Plant Systematics Course, Costa Rica.

Stanford University, 2005. M.S. Biological Sciences.

Brown University, 2001. A.B. Biology with honors, magna cum laude.

Boston Univeristy, 2000. Tropical Ecology Semester, Ecuador.

20. James Stegen, Amy Freestone, Thomas Crist, Marti Anderson, Jonathan Chase, Liza Comita, Howard Cornell. Kendi Davies, Susan Harrison, Allen Hurlbert, Brian Inouye, Nathan Kraft, Jonathan Myers, Nathan Sanders, Nathan Swenson, Mark Vellend. Stochastic and deterministic drivers of spatial and temporal turnover in breeding bird communities. Global Ecology and Biogeography, in press.

19. Travis Ingram, Richard Svanback, Nathan Kraft, Pavel Kratina and Dolph Schluter. Intraguild predation drives evolutionary niche shift in threespine stickleback. Evolution, in press, preprint.

18. Jonathan Davies, Nathan Kraft, Nicolas Salamin, Elizabeth Wolkovich, 2011. Incompletely resolved phylogenetic trees inflate estimates of phylogenetic conservatism. Ecology, online early, preprint pdf.

17. Bradford Hawkins, Christy McCain, Jonathan Davies, Lauren Buckely, Brian Anacker, Howard Cornell, Ellen Damschen, John-Arvid Grytnes, Susan Harrison, Robert Holt, Nathan Kraft, Patrick Stephens. Different evolutionary histories underlie congruent species richness gradients of birds and mammals. Journal of Biogeography, in press. preprint pdf

16. Stephanie Pau, Elizabeth Wolkovich, Benjamin Cook, Jonathan Davies, Nathan Kraft, Kjell Bolmgren, Julio Betancourt, and Elsa Cleland, 2011. A framework for predicting phenology by integrating ecology, evolution and climate science. Global Change Biology, Vol. 17, 3633-3643. pdf

15. Nathan Kraft, Liza Comita, Jon Chase, Nathan Sanders, Nathan Swenson, Thomas Crist, James Stegen, Mark Vellend, Brad Boyle, Marti Anderson, Howard Cornell, Kendi Davies, Amy Freestone, Brian Inouye, Susan Harrison, Jonathan Myers, 2011. Disentangling the drivers of beta diversity along latitudinal and elevational gradients. Science, vol. 333, 1755-1758. pdf, web + supplement, cover image.

14. Nathan Swenson, Brian Enquist, Jason Pither, Andrew Kerkhoff, Brad Boyle, Michael Weiser, James Elser, William Fagan, Jimena Forero-Montaña, Nikolaos Fyllas, Nathan Kraft, Jeffrey Lake, Angela Moles, Sandra Patiño, Oliver Phillips, Charles Price, Peter Reich, Carlos Quesada, James Stegen, Renato Valencia, Ian Wright, S. Joseph Wright, Sandy Andelman, Peter Jørgensen, Thomas Lacher Jr., Abel Monteagudo, M. Percy Núñez-Vargas, Rodolfo Vasquez-Martínez, Kristen Nolting, 2011. The biogeography and filtering of woody plant functional diversity in North and South America. Global Ecology and Biogeography, online early, preprint.

13. Jonathan Chase, Nathan Kraft, Kevin Smith, Mark Vellend, Brian Inouye, 2011. Using null models to disentangle variation in community dissimilarity from variation in alpha-diversity. Ecosphere, Vol 2, Article 24. pdf, R code.

12. Daniel Peppe, Dana Royer, Bárbara Cariglino, Sofia Oliver, Sharon Newman, Elias Leight, Grisha Enikolopov, Margo Fernandez-Burgos, Fabiany Herrera, Jonathan Adams, Edwin Correa, Ellen Currano, J. Mark Erickson, Luis Felipe Hinojosa, John Hoganson, Ari Iglesias, Carlos Jaramillo, Kirk Johnson, Gregory Jordan, Nathan Kraft, Elizabeth Lovelock, Christopher Lusk, Ülo Niinemets, Josep Peñuelas, Gillian Rapson, Scott Wing, and Ian Wright, 2011. Sensitivity of leaf size and shape to climate: global patterns and paleoclimatic applications. New Phytologist, Vol. 190, 724-739. pdf, commentary.

11. Marti Anderson, Thomas Crist, Jonathan Chase, Mark Vellend, Brian Inouye, Amy Freestone, Nathan Sanders, Howard Cornell, Liza Comita, Kendi Davies, Susan Harrison, Nathan Kraft, James Stegen and Nathan Swenson, 2011. Navigating the multiple meanings of beta diversity: a roadmap for the practicing ecologist. Ecology Letters, Vol. 14, 19-28. pdf; selected as a Faculty of 1000 'must read'.

10. Nathan Kraft*, Margaret Metz*, Richard Condit and Jerome Chave, 2010. The relationship between wood density and mortality rates in a global tropical forest dataset. New Phytologist, Vol. 188, 1124-1136. *equal contribution. pdf; supplement.

9. Nathan Kraft and David Ackerly, 2010. Functional trait and phylogenetic tests of community assembly across spatial scales in an Amazonian forest. Ecological Monographs Vol. 80, pp 401-422. pdf

8. Brody Sandel, Leah Goldstein, Nathan Kraft, Jordan Okie, Michal Shuldman, David Ackerly, Elsa Cleland and Katharine Suding, 2010. Contrasting trait responses in plant communities to experimental and geographic variation in precipitation. New Phytologist Vol. 188, 565-575. pdf.

7. Nathan Kraft, Bruce Baldwin, David Ackerly, 2010. Range size, taxon age, and hotspots of neoendemism in the California flora. Diversity and Distributions Vol. 16, pp. 403-413. Abstract, or email for pdf.

6. S. Joseph Wright, Kaoru Kitajima, Nathan Kraft, Peter Reich, Ian Wright, Daniel Bunker, Richard Condit, James Dalling, Stuart Davies, Sandra Díaz, Bettina Engelbrecht, Kyle Harms, Stephen Hubbell, Christian Marks, Maria Ruiz-Jaen, Cristina Salvador, Renato Valencia, and Amy Zanne, 2010. Functional traits and the growth- mortality tradeoff in tropical trees. Ecology Vol. 91, 3664-3674. pdf

5. Lauren Buckley, Jonathan Davies, David Ackerly, Nathan Kraft, Susan Harrison, Brian Anacker, Howard Cornell, Ellen Damschen, John-Avid Grytnes, Bradford Hawkins, Christy McCain, Patrick Stephens and John Weins, 2010. Phylogeny, niche conservatism, and the latitudinal diversity gradient in mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Vol. 277, pp. 2131-2138. pdf

4. David Ackerly, Scott Loarie, Will Cornwell, Stu Weiss, Healy Hamilton, Ryan Branciforte and Nathan Kraft, 2010. The geography of climate change: implications for conservation biogeography. Diversity and Distributions Vol. 16, pp. 476-487. pdf

3. Nathan Kraft and David Ackerly, 2009. Response to comment on "Functional traits and niche-based tree community assembly in an Amazonian forest." Science, Vol. 324, 1015-d. web link

2. Nathan Kraft, Renato Valencia, and David Ackerly, 2008. Functional traits and niche-based tree community assembly in an Amazonian forest. Science, Vol. 322, pp. 580-582. Free pdf or full text. *Selected as a "must read" by the Faculty of 1000

1. Nathan Kraft, William Cornwell, Campbell Webb and David Ackerly, 2007. Trait evolution, community assembly, and the phylogenetic structure of ecological communities. The American Naturalist, Vol. 170(2), pp. 271-283. full text pdf *Received the 2008 President's Award from the American Society of Naturalists

2009, Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship, The Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia. October 2009- December 2011.

2009, "Functional diversity and species coexistence in tropical forests", 2 year postdoctoral fellowship, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. Declined.

2008 President's Award, American Society of Naturalists, for the best paper published in 2007 in the American Naturalist

2001 Biology Prize, Brown University.

Reviews: American Naturalist; Biology Letter; Biotropica; Ecography; Ecological Monographs; Ecological Research; Ecology; Ecology Letters; Evolution; Global Ecology and Biogeography; Journal of Applied Ecology; Journal of Ecology; National Science Foundation; Nature; Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research; New Phytologist; Oecologia; Oikos; Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics; Proceedings of the National Academy of Science; Science; Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Associate faculty member: Community Ecology & Biodiversity, Faculty of 1000.

Working group participant: "Forecasting phenology: Integrating ecology, climatology, and phylogeny to understand plant responses to climate change", May 2010, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. link

Working group participant: "A synthesis of patterns, analyses, and mechanisms of beta-diversity along ecological gradients", 2009-2010, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. link

Workshop co-organizer: "Climate Change and Bay Area Protected Areas", July 2009, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Palo Alto, CA.

Working group participant: "The role of niche conservatism in producing biodiversity gradients," October 2008, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. link

Distributed graduate seminar participant: "Ushering in a new era of functional ecology: Dynamics in a changing environment," March 2008, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. link

Working group participant: "Towards a functional trait based research program within the Center for Tropical Forest Science," 2006, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.