Dr. Kristen Sauby Ph.D. Biology, UF 2017 M.S., Mississippi State 110 Bartram Hall 352.392.1040 e-mail: ksauby@ufl.edu

I am interested in spatial, population, and community ecology, and applications of ecological theory, sampling design, and statistical analysis to management and conservation of populations and communities. For my dissertation research I am using the metacommunity framework (in which a group of local communities is linked by the dispersal of interacting species) to understand spatial variation in herbivore impacts on and demographic impacts to plant populations, with an emphasis on a “metacommunity module” of a few host plant species (native Florida prickly pear cacti [Opuntia species]) interacting with a few herbivore species, including the invasive South American Cactoblastis cactorum.  I am exploring how these interactions among species scale from local settings to regional assemblages, both in basic ecology and in applied contexts.