Ives Lab

My areas of research are community ecology, population biology, evolutionary ecology, and phylogenetics. Although I have research projects involving different questions and different experimental systems, almost all involve temporal dynamics, spatial dynamics, or spatio-temporal dynamics – how things vary through time and space. While some projects are purely mathematical, most combine theory and data.

I am broadly interested in the forces that shape species interactions and ecosystem processes. My research seeks to leverage the unique biological characteristics of Lake Mývatn and the surrounding region to explore these topics.

I am interested in processes that drive variation in the structure and function of ecological communities, as well as the influence that abiotic and biotic conditions have on the outcomes of these processes. At Lake Mývatn, Iceland, I pair observational surveys and experiments to investigate the influence of acute disturbances such as cyanobacterial blooms and wind events on benthic algal communities, with a focus on their role in shaping nutrient availability and biogeochemical cycling.

I am interested in how benthic and pelagic communities are linked and the effects of disturbance on those linkages.

I study how species interactions change in shifting environmental conditions and the resulting effects on ecosystem processes.

I am interested in the ecology of insect parasitoids in natural and agricultural systems. I use different sampling techniques and taxonomic tools to investigate the ways predation, competition and resource distribution affect parasitoid abundance, life history and community structure.

With advisors Jack Williams and Tony Ives, I study the effect of climatic fluctuations during the Holocene on plant communities using paleoecological data.