keywords: Community ecology, entomology, plant-insect interactions, community assembly, dispersal, ecosystem engineers, spatial structure, landscape heterogeneity, biogeography
Projects I've recently been involved in/am currently working on:
Projects I've recently been involved in/am currently working on:
New work at Oklahoma University- stay tuned!
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Dissertation
My dissertation focuses on processes driving diversity and community structure across a space for time chronosequence on the Hawaiian Islands. I am interested in how assembly of canopy arthropods changes across time, as well as what the role of spatial scale and connectivity between communities is on species composition and diversity. At local scales, I am examining how intraspecific variation in host plant traits affects insect communities and their traits. At broader scales, I have made use of remote sensing data to quantify changes in habitat heterogeneity and structural complexity of the forest across succession, and then related this to canopy arthropod diversity. Lastly, part of my dissertation focuses on bridging these spatial scales by examining dispersal and connectivity among forest communities. |
Hawaii Dimensions project The Hawaii Dimensions project aims to test novel biodiversity theories in order to understand ecological and evolutionary mechanisms driving diversity and abundance of arthropod assemblages on Hawaii. It is a collaboration of 25+ scientists from different institutions interested in arthropod diversity on the Hawaiian Islands. Read more: http://nature.berkeley.edu/hawaiidimensions/ |
Waddensleutels
The Waddensleutels project focused on the role of ecosystem engineers such as mussels and seagrass in creating and maintaining biodiversity in the Waddensea. The cover of both mussel banks and sea grass fields has greatly been reduced in the Dutch Waddensea in recent decades. Waddensleutels works to enhance knowledge about processes driving diversity in the Waddensea, in view of longer term recovery and conservation. This project is a collaboration between Natuurmonumenten, Staatsbosbeheer, University of Groningen (RUG), the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the Netherlands Institute for Ecology. I contributed to Waddensleutels while working towards my MSc at the University of Groningen. I focused specifically on the role of substrate and predation settlement of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis and common cockle Cerastoderma edule, and this work was published in Biological Conservation (van der Heide et al 2014). More information at: http://www.waddensleutels.nl |
Grazing lawns & the water balance hypothesis
Formation and maintenance of grazing lawns on African savannah has long been theorized to be driven by nutrient cycling as a result of grazing. The water balance hypothesis argues that in some systems, grazing lawn formation is in part driven by differences in water balance as a result of compaction by large herbivores. This hypothesis was tested in Hluhluwe iMfolozi in South Africa, and findings supporting large herbivore induced differences in soil water were published by Veldhuis et al (2014). This research was part of my MSc work at the University of Groningen. I studied variation in grass traits as related to soil and water characteristics of grazing lawn mosaics during the wet season in Hluhluwe iMfolozi. |