Research Interests
My research interests are broad, spanning many facets of ecology and evolution, but centered around the idea that broad-scale patterns in the structure, function, and diversity of communities ultimately emerge from the performance of individual organisms interacting with the environment through functional traits. I'm specifically interested in understanding how biological systems are reorganized when environmental conditions change. I combine ecological and evolutionary theory with microbial experiments and analysis of large datasets and my study systems include a variety of organisms ranging from viruses in the laboratory to forest communities throughout the world.