Evolution and ecology of plant-insect interactions.

My research is ultimately aimed at understanding biodiversity via adaptation in ecological traits, organization of ecological communities and evolutionary diversification. Toward this end, I study the ecological and evolutionary processes driving trophic interactions between terrestrial plants, insect herbivores, and carnivores that eatinsect herbivores (tri-trophic interactions). These organisms collectively account for over 50% of all 1.75 million described species on Earth.

I am interested in the significance of tri-trophic and other species interactions for generating biodiversity (e.g., Singer and Stireman 2005, Janson et al. 2008) and ecological specialization, as well as testing empirically particular evolutionary and ecological hypotheses by using information at several levels of biological organization. Consequently, this work is often collaborative, involving the domains of community ecology, evolutionary ecology, chemical ecology, behavioral science, neurophysiology, biochemistry, systematics, conservation biology and natural history.