Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences

My research focuses on how human activities affect terrestrial invertebrate communities and the ecosystem services they provide, with a special interest in riparian and grassland ecology, food webs, native bees, and invertebrate predators.

Current projects involve examining the effects of restoration, rangeland management, and ungulate grazing on native bee communities and studying the effects of climate change and watershed management on food webs involving invertebrates. Below are some specific examples of topics my students and I are working on.

Native Bees:

• Effects of riparian restoration and native and domestic ungulate grazing on native bees and their floral resources
• Interaction of invasive annual grass invasions, fire, and livestock grazing on grassland bee communities, their floral resources, and their nesting habitat
• Effect of grassland restoration on native bee communities
• Understanding how climate change and riparian condition interact to influence native bees in riparian areas
• Managing field margins and uncultivated areas in agroecosystems in the interior Columbia Basin to enhance crop pollination
• Vertebrate wildlife-pollinator interactions

Food Webs:

• The effects of river and upland management and climate change on riparian food webs and reciprocal subsidies with aquatic systems (visit our EPA STAR project page - Balancing Ecosystem Services in Semi-Arid Agricultural Lands in an Uncertain Future)
• Livestock effects on grassland food webs involving invertebrates
• Effects of riparian condition on the abundance, diversity and community composition of terrestrial invertebrates, and how these effects are translated through food webs involving fish and wildlife in adjacent streams and terrestrial uplands
• The influence of riparian condition on the density of pest and beneficial invertebrates in agricultural lands next to riparian areas

Specialties: Native Pollinators, Riparian Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Terrestrial Invertebrate Community Ecology