In my lab we study the patterns and dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems at the landscape scale. Our work emphasizes the impacts of human-caused landscape change especially on forest, shrublands and other plant communities, and the wildlife that depends on these habitats. Patterns of human land use -- agriculture and urbanization -- and other large-scale human impacts such as climate change and the introduction of exotic species, often interact with natural disturbance regimes such as fire and hurricanes, to shape plant community dynamics and affect habitat quality for the animals in those communities. How resilient are ecological communities to these multiple impacts? What are the long-term past and future human impacts on ecological communities and biodiversity? Conservation and land management questions drive this work. The tools we use include field surveys of plant community composition, multivariate analysis, spatial statistics, landscape simulation models, and geospatial data analysis (GIS and Remote Sensing).
