Texas State University - San Marcos

Faculty Member, Biology

Assistant Professor

College of Science and Engineering

About

NEWS UPDATE!!  I AM ACTIVELY RECRUITING NEW GRADUATE STUDENTS (Both Masters and PhD).  I ENCOURAGE PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS TO LOOK AT MY RESEARCH SUMMARY BELOW AND TO TAKE A LOOK AT MY PUBLICATIONS.  IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME TO MY LAB SEND ME AN EMAIL TO START COMMUNICATION.

My research is motivated from theoretical and applied perspectives of ecological systems in relation to the daunting environmental challenges posed by the effects of anthropogenic disturbances.  I seek to uncover and understand the general rules that govern the assembly and structure of diverse communities across multiple spatial scales.  I explore the relative contributions of biotic interactions and environmental factors in influencing the identity, number and relative abundances of species at a particular location, and how these processes scale to landscape and global patterns.  To understand community variation over local, landscape, and continental scales, I employ an integrative approach that combines field experimentation, modeling, large scale global comparisons, and null model analyses.  Currently, my work has been enriched by including a metacommunity approach to ascertain biotic structure along environmental gradients.  The study of communities has been of paramount importance in ecology since its early origins, and now it has become critical in the 21st Century, given the global effects of anthropogenic activities.  Ultimately, my research aims to provide a scientific basis for the management of populations and communities in a world dominated by human disturbances.  In general, my research program has four main foci unified under the main goal of predicting community responses to anthropogenic disruptions, both global (climate change) and local (habitat degradation):

A) Role of temporal segregation in structuring assemblages.

B) Assembly structure disruptions and zoonotic diseases.

C) Metacommunity structure along environmental gradients.

D) Landscape use by carnivores.

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