Teaching

Current Courses

Structure and function of ecosystems, with an emphasis on carbon and nutrient cycling in the context of climate change and other global change drivers (e.g., nitrogen deposition, land use change, and altered disturbance regimes). Examples of the questions we address include: How is ecosystem carbon storage responding to climate change? How do ecosystems respond to elevated atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, and how does nutrient availability affect this CO₂ response? How does biodiversity affect ecosystem function?
Three credit hours.
Offered every fall semester; rotating instructors.

This is a research-based course for undergraduates. Students collect ecological data at field sites and learn to analyze and visualize data using the R programming language. I have taught this course both as a standard semester-long course and as an intensive immersion course as part of the UF Biology Department’s Semester of Immersion.
Three or four credit hours.
Spring 2021 and 2022.

Ecological processes and organization in terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Lectures focus on fundamental principles of ecology. Laboratory and field exercises emphasize how ecologists do research, including: formulating testable hypotheses, designing field and lab experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and using mathematical models.
Pre-requisites: college-level biology.
Four credit hours.
Offered one or two semesters per year; rotating instructors.

The Ecology Seminar (aka PEERS: Perspectives in Ecological Research) provides a forum for graduate students and other researchers to get feedback on their work and to discuss professional development topics. We also have periodic field trips to local natural areas and ecological research sites. Anyone is welcome to participate. Visit the Ecology Seminar (PEERS) webpage.

Climate change and its impacts on biological communities, feedbacks from the biosphere to the climate system, human impacts on the carbon cycle. Emphasis on the response of vegetation to climate change and rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and the role of terrestrial ecosystems in regulating climate via the carbon cycle.
Pre-requisites: college-level biology.
Four credit-hours.
Fall 2011 and fall 2012 (ZOO4926). Currently taught by other instructors.

This course examines key issues in Sustainability and Global Environmental Change from an ecological perspective.
No pre-requisites.
Three credit hours.
Spring 2013 and spring 2015. Currently taught by other instructors.
This is a core course in the Bachelor of Arts in Sustainability Studies (BASS) degree program. The course is intended for non-science majors and counts towards the General Education Requirement in Physical and Biological Sciences.

The Global Carbon Cycle (ZOO6927, Spring 2012): The global carbon cycle and its role in regulating climate. Emphasis on the terrestrial biosphere.
Forest Growth Response to Global Change (BOT6935, Fall 2013): Read and discuss current literature aimed at understanding if/how/why the carbon balance of tropical, temperate, and boreal forests has changed over recent decades and may change in the future. Emphasis on response of net primary production to climate change and CO2 fertilization.
IPCC Biogeochemistry (BOT6935, Spring 2014): Read and discuss Chapter 6 (“Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles”) from the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group I. This 106-page document summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding interactions between the carbon cycle, other biogeochemical cycles, and climate.
Ecophylogenetics (BOT6935, Fall 2016): Read and discuss foundational and recent literature on how ecological questions can be approached from a phylogenetic perspective.