Recent News
Hot off the presses is “Functional and phylogenetic diversity of sharks in the Northeastern Pacific.” This work started with a UF Biodiversity Institute Faculty Seed Grant back in 2019 and went about collating and collecting shark ecological traits. We identified ten shark functional groups in the NE Pacific from all that data that largely split by life history strategy. These functional groups or the shark community phylogenetic structure did not strongly align with membership to macroecological strata. Somewhat in contrary to other community phylogenetic studies, we found that the phylogram only approximated the functional dendrogram backbone. This was likely due to the long evolutionary history of sharks and an expansive trait diversity.
About Me
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I am a quantitative ecologist studying patterns across the ecological hierarchy in search of the processes that link individuals to populations, populations to communities, and communities to ecosystems. I specialize in integrating analytical methods into synthetic models aimed at providing robust inference and filling data gaps. I have applied these integrated models in a broad set of interdisciplinary problems ranging from building risk maps for conservation and natural resource priority species to estimating life history characteristics of data-deficient species. Above all, I enjoy solving puzzles across the natural sciences. With a background in biology and chemistry, it is no wonder that my other interests feature these subjects prominently. I am an avid gardener with a collection of Zingiberales and orchids. I take much of my gardening inspiration by exploring the natural world and especially enjoy hunting for rare plants in situ. I try my hand at photography both in the garden and out exploring so the photos featured here are my own. |
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My BackgroundI grew up exploring the Southwestern United States and Eastern North America. I received a B.S. in Biology and B.A in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I stayed there for my M.S. studying the spatial and movement ecology of Basking Sharks in the Bay of Fundy. I finished my PhD at the University of Florida in 2017 studying the role of habitat in structuring aquatic vertebrate interactions. I was a postdoctoral researcher at UF from 2018-2020.
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