Announcements

2023

Grants and Awards — We are thrilled to share the exciting news of our FIRST NSF grant! We will develop mechanistic models for seasonal avian migration to understand if migrating animals can adjust their migration routes and schedules to track key resources even as the phenology of these resources shifts with climate change. This is a collaboration with Drs. Lam, Zhai and Loss. We will hire a two-years postdoc for this project! Come join us.

Lab attended Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Portland — We had a great time in ESA and we learnt a lot. Three graduate students presented their work and received very positive feedback!

Rabeca won first place at the Research Day at the Capitol — Lab undergraduate student, Rabeca, won first place in the research-intensive institution category at the Research Day at the Capitol event in Oklahoma City. It has been an amazing two years working with her and Ally (the graduate mentee) on the project of understanding efficacy of physical removal management on invasive grass under drought. Rabeca is currently working on two manuscripts that will be accomplished from this project. Go to this link for a nice write up.

New Lab Members —

Lab is excited to welcome a new PhD student, Gabriel Hessler, who will start in the Fall 2023. Gabriel is interested in how the living things around us respond to environmental changes or stressors inflicted either directly or indirectly by humans and looking at how we can model some of these changes in a lab setting. Welcome!
Lab is excited to welcome our first post-baccalaureate student, Carson D. Turner, who will join the lab for one year, starting in June 2023. Carson is supported by the NSF ON-RaMP post-baccalaureate program, which offers mentored research experiences for postbaccalaureate graduates in the biological sciences. Welcome!

Publication —

First author paper on "Effective and timely use of models to inform on-the-ground management of invasive plants" is accepted in Biological Invasions.

2022

New Lab Members —

Lab welcomed another new MS student, Ashley Baragary, who received her BS in Marine Biology from Northwest Missouri State University. Ashley is interested in aquatic ecology and conservation. In the future, she plans to study aquatic ecosystems, modeling how they are affected by external factors such as climate change and human behavior, and helping develop effective conservation and management plans. Welcome Ashley!
Lab welcomed another new MS student, Jamaal Jacobs, who received his BS from University of South Carolina. Jamaal is interested in conservation ecology and evolution. He wants to study how climate change and human development are impacting various populations. Additionally, he wants to study ways that the impacts on endangered species can be managed. Welcome Jamaal!
Undergraduate student, Rabeca, is selected as one of the four undergraduate students from OSU to present her research at Research Day at the Capitol in Spring! We are super excited about this opportunity!

Grants and Awards —

Together with Dr. Michael Reichert, we received new funding from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to support a two-year study on "Estimating Crawfish Frog Abundance and Habitat Suitability Using Ecological and Bioacoustic Techniques". Thanks Owen for his contributions to the proposal! We are looking forward to starting this new project/collaboration SOON!!!
Owen received the CEEC Presentation Travel Award to support his presentation in the Central Ecology and Evolution Conference, congratulations!
Lab received the Academic Summer Research Award from College of Arts and Sciences, Oklahoma State University, to support our project of "Advancing projections of grass invasion and its impact on endangered-species habitats."
Feel super proud to share that Rabeca, freshman research scholar in our lab has been selected as a 2022-2023 Niblack Research Scholar ($8,000 stipend) to support her study on effects of drought and clipping on mycorrhizal symbiosis of Johnsongrass, an invasive grass in Oklahoma.
We are looking forward to seeing what she will find out!

2021

New Lab Member — Lab welcomed a new MS student, Owen Edwards, whose research interests are focused primarily on the ecology and evolution of vertebrates, using reptiles and amphibians as experimental models. He has recently been interested in understanding how climate changes are altering species’ range shifts.

First Lab Photo — The first lab picture was taken in Fall 2021, right before the end of our first growing season of the Johnson grass project. Thanks for all the hard work of our team, especially Ally and all her wonderful undergraduate assistants from the Department of Integrative Biology here at OSU. Stay tuned for what we find. P.S. Q is very excited to be the official lab pet.

Publications —

The paper that I am co-authored on, "Toward a Universal Theoretical Framework to Understand Robustness and Resilience: From Cells to Systems", is published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. It has been a super enjoyable team work.
First author paper on: "Scaling up experimental stress responses of grass invasion to predictions of continental-level range suitability", is accepted in Ecology.
First author paper on: "Contrasting plant responses to multivariate environmental variations among species with divergent elevation shifts" is accepted in Ecological Applications. Woohoo.
Two brilliant MS students, Zhiyuan Fu and Yuanming Lu, got their first paper accepted in Elementa, "Integrating mechanical treatment and biological control to improve field treatment efficiency on invasions", so proud of them and I look forward to seeing what comes next.
First author paper on: "The optimal controlling strategy on a dispersing population in a two-patch system: experimental and theoretical perspectives", is accepted in Journal of Theoretical Biology.
First author paper on: "Directed movement changes coexistence outcomes in heterogeneous environments", is accepted in Ecology Letters. Thanks to all my best collaborators for making the whole journey possible and so enjoyable.

2020

Presentation in the Mathematical Biosciences Institute (the Ohio State University), Workshop: Life on Planet Earth: Above and Below — I was invited to give a presentation recently in the MBI workshop, and I talked about my work on "Connectivity and Ecological Dynamics". The talk includes understanding on: 1. How movement alters carrying capacity in heterogeneous environments, and how consumer-resource model made better and more accurate prediction than the logistic equation; 2. How does directed movement alter coexistence in heterogeneous environments? There were very nice discussions after the talk. Talk link is here. Thanks again to all the organizers and to check other talks, click here.

Received the Elsevier Talk Prize in the 2020 Society for Mathematical Biology Annual Meeting (Section of Population Dynamics Ecology & Evolution) — This is a real SURPRISE! I'd like to thank all the judges and I do enjoy my first SMB meeting very much.

Received the 2020 UC Davis Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research — For the last two years, it has been an incredible journey to be part of UC Davis. Thank you to my mentors, colleagues, and friends. Special thanks to my funding support, UC Chancellor postdoc fellowship. I still feel it was yesterday when I walked into the Wickson Hall for the first time. The local farmers market sells my favorite popcorn; I know Peet's coffee until I moved to Davis; Love the Nugget supermarket; Love the local compost project, what else?

Publications —

First author review paper on: "Carrying capacity of spatially distributed metapopulations" is accepted in Trends in Ecology & Evolution! Woohoo.
First author review paper on :"An overview of Agent-Based Models in Plant Ecology" got accepted in Annals of Botany. We reviewed > 200 publications on ABM , mainly focused on plant science. We are impressed by all the progress that has been accomplished. Looking forward to new research ideas in this field.
First author paper on :"Effect of stressors on the carrying capacity of spatially-distributed metapopulations" got accepted in the American Naturalist. We are so excited to find a wonderful home for our paper! Great start of 2020.

2019

Received the 2019 Outstanding Paper in Ecological Theory, ESA — Our paper "Carrying capacity in a heterogeneous environment with habitat connectivity" Ecology Letters, (2017) 20: 1118–1128" was selected as the 2019 Outstanding Paper in Ecological Theory, ESA. We thank committees for their contributions to the society and their encouraging words on our work: "The committee and I believe this work will inspire much future work in spatial ecology at the interface of theory and experiment". View the link here. This project is heading towards to another exciting direction with more collaborators involved. Stay tuned. This paper is accessible on Researchgate.

Publications —

To celebrate the "Partial Differential Equations in Ecology: 80 Years and Counting", we contributed a review paper "Carrying Capacity of a Population Diffusing in a Heterogeneous Environment", published on Mathematics.
The paper that I am co-first authored on, "Ecological contingency in species shifts: Downslope shifts of woody species under warming climate and land-use change" was accepted in Environmental Research Letters. More to come.
Our paper, "Simulation of post-hurricane impact on invasive species with biological control management" lead by two of my awesome undergrads, Linhao Xu and Marya Zdechlik, was accepted in Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems A! We used matrix structure model to look at post hurricane Irma’s effect on an invasive species recovery with and without biocontrol. So proud of them!
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi associated with tree species in a planted forest of Eastern China" was accepted in Forests.

2018

Host the Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference 2018 in Univ of Miami — A group of us successfully host the Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference in Univ of Miami, Oct 5 - 8. We were honored to invite Dr. Dan Simberloff as the plenary speaker, and over 100 scientists to join us! It was really fun. Next year, SEEC will move to Auburn University.

Attend the NSF-funded EarthCube Research Coordination Network Workshop — Attend the NSF-funded EarthCube Research Coordination Network Workshop: Advancing the Analysis of High Resolution Topography (A2 HRT), August 21-24, 2018, in Broomfield, CO. Thanks for the travel support, and it was an awesome workshop!

Awarded a UC Davis Chancellors' Postdoctoral Fellowship — I will join Dr. Alan Hastings' lab. Very excited and really appreciate this great opportunity. Looking forward to the new journey.

Publications —

The paper that I am co-authored on, "Effects of sulfuric, nitric, and mixed acrid rain on Chinese fir sapling growth in Southern China", was published in Eco-toxicology and Environmental Safety.
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Carrying capacity of a spatially-structured population: disentangling the effects of dispersal, growth parameters, habitat heterogeneity and habitat clustering", was published in Journal of Theoretical Biology.
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Remote sensing unhelpful resilience to sea level rise caused by mangrove expansion: A case study of islands in Florida Bay, USA" was published in Ecological Indicator.

2017

Two grants received —

Effects, Impacts and Influences of Hurricane Irma Funding, University of Miami, The College of Arts and Sciences, Co-PI.
Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GEPES) Fiscal Year 2018 Post-Hurricane Irma Damage Assessment Award, U.S. Geological Survey, PI.

Looking forward to starting the project soon, with D. L. DeAngelis, M. Rayamajhi, M. Smith and D. Van Dyken.

04/2017 — Received Award — Received “NASA-MSU Professional Enhancement Awards”, which are supported by the NASA and Michigan State University (MSU) to assist some outstanding junior scholars in attending the US-IALE meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, April 9-13, 2017.

03/31/2017 — Successfully defended my dissertation — I defended my dissertation successfully, I truly enjoyed the six years, and I am grateful for all the support, help and advice from my advisor, committee members, colleagues, friends and families. Thanks a lot for sharing this journey with me, and I am looking forward to the future.

Publications —

The paper that I am co-authored on, "The Relationship between Sap Flow Density and Environmental Factors in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China ", was published in Forests.
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Comparative effects of sulfate and nitrate acid rain on litter decomposition and soil microbial community in subtropical plantation of Yangtze River Delta Region", was published in the Science of Total Environment.
First author paper, "Carrying capacity in a heterogeneous environment with habitat connectivity", was published in Ecology Letters. Thanks for all the co-authors and especially Dr. David Van Dyken for offering this study opportunity.
First author paper, "Modeling the compensatory response of an invasive tree to specialist insect herbivory", was accepted in Biological Control.

01/2017 — F1000 Associate Faculty Member — I started to serve as an associate faculty member for Faculty of 1000, in section of Theoretical Ecology. My main responsibility is to check the contents of the following journals to write brief accessible comments to summarize the value of the articles for F1000:

Ecology Letters
Ecological Applications

2016

Fieldwork in China — In September, we performed a field work in Dabie Mountain, in China, aiming to detect how different woody species respond to environmental stress (such as drought or poor nutrient) along elevation gradient (up to 1300 m).

Certification — Completion of the Graduate certificate program in "Geo-spatial Technology". 3 years. This program includes Arc-GIS, remote sensing and Geo-spatial analysis.

Publications —

First author paper "Similarity of adaptive functional traits and plant aggregation in a sub-tropical forest" is in pressin Ecology and Evolution, thanks to all the co-authors and our persistence. Took us >5 years to get it done!!
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Spatial patterning of excitatory and inhibitory synapses during spinal circuit development", just got accepted in The Journal of Comparative Neurology. Very exciting news, because we applied spatial analysis (Ripley's L-function) to a neuron science study. Check out Dr.Julia Dallman's lab.
The paper that I am co-authored on, "Effect of forest shelter-belt as a regional climate improver along the old course of the Yellow River, China", was published in Agroforestry Systems.
First author paper "Modeling the long-term effects of introduced herbivores on the spread of an invasive tree", has published in Landscape Ecology. This work was funded by "USGS’s Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystem Science funding".
The paper that I am co-authored on, " Effects of Diffusion on Total Biomass in Heterogeneous Continuous and Discrete-Patch Systems" has published in Theoretical Ecology.

2015

Publications —

The paper that I am co-authored on " Dispersal and spatial heterogeneity: single species" has published in Journal of Mathematical Biology.
First-author paper "Effects of dispersal on total biomass in a patchy, heterogeneous system: Analysis and experiment" has published in Mathematical Biosciences.

2014

Presentation — I presented the study of "The effects of heterogeneity and dispersal on population biomass" in the "Dispersal and competition of populations and communities in spatially heterogeneous environments" workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland. Aug 2014.

Publications —

Invited paper “Effects of Population Dispersal in a Non-Uniform Environment Individual Dynamics and Competition: A Patch Model Approach” was published in Journal discrete and Continuous Dynamical System.
The paper that I am co-authored on "Population age and initial density in a patchy environment affect the occurrence of abrupt transitions in a birth-and-death model of Taylor's law" was published in Ecological Modeling.