Research

An overarching goal of my research is improving predictions of how ecosystems will change as a result of climate change. Terrestrial ecosystems present a particular challenge for prediction because the response of long-lived terrestrial vegetation to present-day stressors will only become fully apparent decades to centuries into the future. Therefore, modern empirical records, which are used to build predictive models, cannot fully constrain the relationship between climate and vegetation change. I use a variety of modeling tools and data sources across scales to inform predictions of terrestrial vegetation change over ecologically-relevant timescales.

Click on the links below to find out more about my ongoing research efforts and completed research projects!

Ongoing projects

Collaborative, interdisciplinary research in ecological forecasting

I approach my research within the framework of ecological forecasting. Framing my science in terms of ecological forecasting allows me to simultaneously advance basic research on environmental change while making predictions that can inform policy and management of terrestrial ecosystems.

Model-data fusion as hypothesis testing

I advocate for reframing mechanistic models as ecological hypotheses and model-data fusion as a tool for hypothesis testing. I am currently working on an application of this framework using a forest mechanistic model and empirical data of aboveground biomass in the northeast, USA.

Using long-term data to inform the climate-vegetation relationship

I investigate the drivers of biome distributions and tree community composition using historical and paleoecological data. Collectively, my work points toward both climate and climate-vegetation-disturbance feedbacks driving broad patterns in terrestrial vegetation.

This research was supported by an NSF Macrosystems grant for the PalEON Project, which I co-wrote with my advisor, Jason McLachlan, as a graduate student. In addition, I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to support these research ideas.

Past work

Representing lianas in Earth system models

I began my PhD doing rotations, one of which was in the Medvigy Lab. I investigated functional trait differences between tropical trees and lianas with the purpose of identifying functional differences between trees and lianas to incorporate a liana functional type into Earth system models. I found that lianas on average have more acquisitive hydraulic traits than tropical trees, the axis by which trees and lianas differ most. I then developed a model of competition between an individual tree-liana pair to understand the consequences of the difference in hydraulic functional traits on tree-liana competition and carbon assimilation. My key finding was that, under future scenarios of drying hydroclimatic conditions in the Neotropics, lianas may surpass a survival threshold, wherein the acquisitive hydraulic architecture of lianas is unable to maintain photosynthesis under severely dry atmospheric conditions (Willson et al. 2022).