Research overview
Population dynamics are central to studies of distribution and abundance, including species of conservation or management concern, and are the building blocks of community- and ecosystem-level processes. Population dynamics are governed by two processes: demography and dispersal. “Demography” includes all the life cycle transitions that give rise to births and deaths, while “dispersal” refers to movement. Overlaid on these two main ingredients are the two dimensions over which population dynamics play out: time and space. From this perspective, the science of population ecology is surprisingly simple. There are two dimensions along which populations may change (time and space) and two mechanisms that can drive those changes (demography and dispersal). Yet, the sources of variation in demography and dispersal are daunting and poorly resolved. These include: individual traits such as size, age, sex, or genotype; abiotic perturbations such as climate change; within-species interactions such as mating and competition; between-species interactions such as predation or mutualism; and finally, plain old chance. Understanding how these influences on demography and dispersal at the individual level scale up to drive population dynamics is a persistent challenge in the field.
Our work relies heavily on mathematical models, especially structured population models, which allow us to connect individual-level demography and dispersal to population-level processes. Some of this work is purely theoretical, some of it is purely empirical, but the majority lies at the interface of theory and data. Statistical modeling is a central part of our research because it is the glue that binds theory and data.
You can browse the research pages of this site to learn more about our current projects.