People

	Jeremy Lichstein – Professor I am interested in the ecology of communities and ecosystems, particularly forests. My current research focuses on understanding how forest dynamics and the terrestrial carbon cycle respond to changes in climate, disturbance regimes, and atmospheric CO₂. An underlying theme in my research is studying how biodiversity, especially plant functional diversity, modulates ecosystem responses to environmental change. My research involves field campaigns, analyzing data from large observational networks, and mathematical and computer simulation modeling. I have worked in tropical, temperate, and boreal ecosystems. Opportunities to join our research group are described here. Download CV. E-mail jlichstein@ufl.edu.
	Sagar Budhathoki – PhD Student I am interested in forest ecology and environmental resilience. I have been working on biodiversity enhancement, ecosystem restoration, and invasive species control. In my PhD, I will assess seedling dynamics and forest regeneration under global change and disturbance regimes. By using both field data and large datasets and applying statistical and process-based modeling, I aim to understand how climate factors and disturbances influence forest recruitment. E-mail sagarbudhathoki@ufl.edu.
	Yuanming Lu – PhD Student (co-advised with Bob Holt) Yuanming Lu has concentrated her doctoral work on the invasion of south-Florida vegetation by Melaleuca quinquenervia and the biological control agents deployed against it. Building on an M.S. thesis that documented Melaleuca’s litter-mediated suppression of native seedlings, her Ph.D. research continues to use individual-based simulations to explore how contrasting dispersal rates and host–pathogen interactions shape long-term species coexistence. Yuanming earned a B.S. in Ecology and Evolution from Stony Brook University, NY and an M.S. in Biology from the University of Miami, FL. Broadly, she is a theoretical ecologist interested in invasion biology, and spatial population dynamics—always looking for ways to translate model insights into practical management strategies. E-mail yuanming.lu@ufl.edu.
	Thomas Bytnerowicz – Postdoctoral researcher My research encompasses biogeochemistry, plant ecophysiology and the response of terrestrial ecosystems to global change. I am interested in patterns, trajectories, and controls of the nitrogen and carbon cycles and their feedbacks with climate. In my research I use a range of approaches, from methods development, to experiments (greenhouse, growth chamber, field), to theoretical modeling, to terrestrial biosphere modeling, to analyses of forest inventory data. website. E-mail t.bytnerowicz@ufl.edu.
	Christopher Moore – Postdoctoral researcher Broadly, my research interests include understanding how disturbance or restoration affect community assembly. I am particularly interested in learning and applying novel quantitative methods to better understand how human activities affect ecosystem dynamics. My dissertation work advanced the rationale for using trophically transmitted parasites as indicators or “surrogates” of overall biodiversity. Using this approach, I assessed biodiversity and restoration success in the short-term (<1 year) and up to 25 years following the addition of structured habitat in coastal environments. Results from multiple projects demonstrated that metazoan parasites could be used as indicators of trophic complexity in restored habitat, and that complex parasite communities required more time to develop compared to communities of associated free-living taxa. As a post-doc at Florida Atlantic University, I used meta-analysis to try and understand why parasite diversity is much lower than expected in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida – an urbanized estuary subject to a multitude of anthropogenic stressors. In my post-doc work at UF, I am using SORTIE-ND, a spatially explicit modeling framework, to build and test models exploring how forest dynamics in the United States are changing. E-mail cs.moore@ufl.edu.