A5048185237- Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Plant and animal studies
- Ecosystem dynamics and resilience
- Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Forest ecology and management
- Remote Sensing in Agriculture
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
- Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology
- Bacteriophages and microbial interactions
- Forest Management and Policy
- Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Gut microbiota and health
- Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics
- Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- thermodynamics and calorimetric analyses
- Zoonotic diseases and public health
Duke University
2020-2025
University of California, Los Angeles
2018-2022
Yale University
2015-2022
Much ecological research aims to explain how climate impacts biodiversity and ecosystem-level processes through functional traits that link environment with individual performance. However, the specific climatic drivers of diversity across space time remain unclear due largely limitations in availability paired trait data. We compile analyze a global forest dataset using method based on abundance-weighted moments assess influences shapes whole-community distributions. Our approach combines...
Remote sensing of trait-based ecology can improve our understanding the effect trait diversity on ecosystem functioning.
Significance Microbes regulate nutrient flux and carbon storage within ecosystems, making them essential to the global cycle ecosystem responses climate change. Understanding how change will alter microbial communities this feed back influence pace of requires linking processes across levels organization, from individual organisms whole ecosystems. We show that physical characteristics (traits) protist species their populations respond changes in temperature. These species-level temperature...
Biomass dynamics capture information on population and ecosystem-level processes (e.g., changes in production over time). Understanding how rising temperatures associated with global climate change influence biomass is thus a pressing issue ecology. The total of species depends its density average mass. Consequently, disentangling responds to increasingly warm variable ultimately understanding temperature influences both mass dynamics. Here, we address this by keeping track experimental...
Abstract Climate change is affecting how energy and matter flow through ecosystems, thereby altering global carbon nutrient cycles. Microorganisms play a fundamental role in cycling are thus an integral link between ecosystems climate. Here, we highlight major black box hindering our ability to anticipate ecosystem climate responses: viral infections within complex microbial food webs. We show understanding predicting responses warming could be challenging—if not impossible—without...
Abstract Mixotrophs are ubiquitous and integral to microbial food webs, but their impacts on the dynamics functioning of broader ecosystems largely unresolved. Here, we show that mixotrophy produces a unique type web module exhibits unusual ecological dynamics, with surprising consequences for carbon flux under warming. We develop generalizable model mixotrophic incorporates dynamic switching between phototrophy phagotrophy assess total system CO 2 flux. find warming switches systems...
Abstract Premise Leaf mass per area (LMA) links leaf economic strategies, community assembly, and climate can be reconstructed from woody non‐monocot angiosperm (WNMA) fossils using the petiole metric (PM; width 2 /leaf area). Reliable interpretation of LMA fossil record is limited by an incomplete understanding how PM are correlated at scale what climatic parameters drive variation both measured WNMAs globally. Methods A modern, global, community‐scale data set in situ WNMA was compiled to...
Abstract Body size is a fundamental trait linked to many ecological processes—from individuals ecosystems. Although the effects of body on metabolism are well‐known, potential reciprocal and density less clear. Specifically, (a) whether changes in or more strongly influence other (b) coupled rapid due plasticity, evolutionary change combination both. Here, we address these two issues by experimentally tracking population mean protist Tetrahymena pyriformis as it grows from low carrying...
Abstract Microbes affect the global carbon cycle that influences climate change and are in turn influenced by environmental change. Here, we use data from a long‐term whole‐ecosystem warming experiment at boreal peatland to answer how temperature CO 2 jointly influence communities of abundant, diverse, yet poorly understood, non‐fungi microbial Eukaryotes (protists). These microbes ecosystem function directly through photosynthesis respiration, indirectly, predation on decomposers (bacteria...
Understanding constraints on consumer-resource body size-ratios is fundamentally important from both ecological and evolutionary perspectives. By analyzing data 4685 interactions nine communities, we show that in spatially complex environments—where consumers can forage two (2D, e.g., benthic zones) three (3D, pelagic spatial dimensions—the resource-to-consumer size-ratio distribution tends towards bimodality, with different median 2D 3D peaks. Specifically, find consistently smaller than...
Anthropogenic increases in temperature and nutrient loads will likely impact food web structure stability. Although their independent effects have been reasonably well studied, joint effects—particularly on coupled ecological phenotypic dynamics—remain poorly understood. Here we experimentally manipulated levels microbial webs used time-series analysis to quantify the strength of reciprocal between dynamics across trophic levels. We found that (1) joint—often interactive—effects nutrients...
As global environmental conditions continue to change at an unprecedented rate, many species will experience increases in natural and anthropogenic stress. Generally speaking, selection is expected favor adaptations that reduce the negative impact of stress (i.e., tolerance). However, variables typically fluctuate, exhibiting various degrees temporal autocorrelation, known as colors, which may complicate evolutionary responses Here we combine experiments theory show autocorrelation can...
Assessing the impacts of anthropogenic degradation and climate change on global carbon cycling is hindered by a lack clear, flexible easy‐to‐use productivity models along with scarce trait data for parameterizing testing those models. We provide simple solution: mechanistic framework (RS‐CFM) that combines remotely‐sensed foliar‐trait canopy‐structural trait‐based metabolic theory to efficiently map at large spatial scales. test this quantifying net primary (NPP) high‐resolution (0.01‐ha) in...
Understanding the processes that influence range expansions during climate warming is paramount for predicting population extirpations and preparing arrival of non-native species. While occurs over a background variation due to cyclical irregular events, temporal structure thermal environment largely ignored when forecasting dynamics Ecological theory predicts high levels autocorrelation in - relatedness between conditions occurring close proximity will favor populations would otherwise have...
The impact of temporal variation in the environment, specifically amount autocorrelation, on population processes is growing interest ecology and evolutionary biology. It was recently discovered that autocorrelation environment can significantly increase abundance populations would otherwise have low, or even negative long‐term growth rates (via so‐called ‘inflationary effects’), provided immigration from another source prevents extinction. Here we use a mathematical model to ask whether...
Abstract Microbial communities regulate ecosystem responses to climate change. But predicting these is challenging due complex interactions among processes at multiple ecological scales. Organismal traits that determine individual performance and are essential for scaling up predictions of environmental from individuals ecosystems. We combine experiments mathematical models show key microbial traits—cell size, shape, cell contents—independently drive shifts in demographic rates across...
Mixotrophs are ubiquitous and integral to microbial food webs, but their impacts on the dynamics functioning of broader ecosystems largely unresolved. Here, we show that mixotrophy produces a unique, dynamic type web module exhibits unusual ecological dynamics, with surprising consequences for carbon flux under warming. We find mixotrophs generate alternative stable states across temperatures—including an autotrophy-dominant sink state, heterotrophy-dominant source cycling between these two....
Microbes affect the global carbon cycle that influences climate change and are in turn influenced by environmental change. Here, we use data from a long-term whole-ecosystem warming experiment at boreal peatland to answer how temperature CO 2 jointly influence communities of abundant, diverse, yet poorly understood, non-fungi microbial Eukaryotes (protists). These microbes ecosystem function directly through photosynthesis respiration, indirectly, predation on decomposers (bacteria, fungi)....
ABSTRACT Microbial respiration alone releases massive amounts of Carbon (C) into the atmosphere each year, greatly impacting global C cycle that fuels climate change. Larger microbial population growth often leads to larger standing biomass, which in turns higher respiration. How rising temperatures might influence growth, however, depends on how thermal performance curves (TPCs) governing this may adapt novel environments. This adaptation will turn depend there being heritable genetic...
ABSTRACT Global warming is reshaping food webs globally. Rapid evolution has been proposed as a buffer against climate change, but how simultaneous shifts in biotic and abiotic environments may influence unknown. Using experimental mathematical modeling microbial of prey algae ciliate predators, we tested 1) temperature affects 2) the food-web context––i.e., predator identity, abundance, competition among predators–– mediates evolutionary dynamics. We found that alone does not drive unless...
Climate change is affecting how energy and matter flow within ecosystems, altering global carbon nutrient cycles. Microorganisms play a fundamental role in cycling are thus an integral link between ecosystems climate. Here, we highlight major black box hindering our ability to anticipate ecosystem climate responses: viral infections complex microbial food webs. We show understanding predicting responses warming could be challenging—if not impossible—without accounting for the direct indirect...
Predicting food web structure in future climates is a pressing goal of ecology. These predictions may be impossible without solid understanding the factors that current webs. The most fundamental aspect structure—the relationship between number links and species—is still poorly understood. Some species interactions physically or physiologically ‘forbidden'—like consumption by non-consumer species—with possible consequences for structure. We show accounting these ‘forbidden interactions'...