My Research

I use California serpentine grassland communities as a model system to understand how climate change and species invasion alter plant communities. My dissertation research focuses on how native and invasive species interact under shifting rainfall and temperature regimes, and on the traits that determine whether species coexist or replace one another.

Beyond these core projects, I have collaborated on studies of ecosystem function and plant functional traits, priority effects in microbial communities, how plant invasion drives biotic homogenization, and how invaders alter trait composition across U.S. ecosystems.

Click the projects below more to learn more.

Trait differentiation and climatic stress moderate native-invader coexistence

This project investigates how climate change and invasive species together reshape plant communities. While extreme temperatures and drought directly stress plants, equally important are the indirect effects -- such as shifts in which species thrive, decline, or gain a competitive edge over others. Using a large outdoor experiment that manipulates temperature and rainfall over the course of two growing seasons and the functional composition of the plants within a community, this study will test how competition outcomes depend on species’ functional traits (like height, leaf structure, or seed size) and on differences in the climate in which they compete. By measuring plant growth, reproduction, and resource use across a wide range of climate conditions, the research aims to test a general framework for predicting when and how native and invasive species will coexist or replace each other under future climates.

Can climate-tracking communities enrich the productivity and diversity of climate-lagging remnants?

Predicting how ecological communities will respond to climate change is one of the most pressing challenges in ecology. This question is especially urgent for soil specialists with limited dispersal ability, such as the rare and diverse plant communities of California’s serpentine grasslands. Serpentine populations face a dual challenge: either remain in place in “climate-lagging” communities, persisting under hotter and drier conditions while competing with newly arriving species, or overcome barriers to dispersal and competition from established residents shift into more favorable habitats as “climate-tracking” populations. This project investigates how serpentine communities may respond to these challenges using experimental mesocosms of serpentine grassland communities collected across California. By simulating projected climate outcomes at both local scales (microclimatic variation within a site) and regional scales (across northern and southern serpentine ranges) and measuring shifts in diversity, composition, productivity, and climatic niche, I ask how California serpentine communities respond to warming, drying, and novel species interactions. This experiment will provide new insights into the resilience and vulnerability of serpentine ecosystems under climate change. Beyond advancing our understanding of community responses, the results have direct conservation implications, including when interventions like managed relocation may help preserve serpentine biodiversity and when they might pose unintended risks.

Warming and precipitation change alter flowering phenology in California serpentine grasslands

This project examines how climate change alters the timing of flowering among California serpentine grassland annuals and, in turn, the networks they form with pollinators. When many species flower together, these “coflowering networks” draw more pollinators but also increase the risk of pollen mixing between species, while weaker networks reduce both pollination and pollen contamination. By building experimental communities of up to 12 serpentine annual species and exposing them to different rainfall and temperature conditions, I tracked weekly flowering patterns over a growing season. Early findings show that warming reduces overlap among late-season flowers, that plants at different times of year respond differently to soil moisture under heat, and that species with different traits also respond in distinct ways. These changes threaten to disrupt pollinator foraging, especially in the late dry season, putting at risk both pollinators and the rich diversity of these unique grasslands.

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}