Dynamics of Ecological and Evolutionary Processes Lab
is based in 5350
Storer Hall at the Unversity of California, Davis. It is a group of
people that work on various projects concerning the modeling, analysis,
and simulation of ecological and evolutionary processes.
Current DEEP Lab Members
- Post-docs
- Ryusuke
Kon (2007-2008) is a COE research fellow from Japan who is visiting
the DEEP lab for this year. Ryusuke is analyzing the dynamics of
host-parasitoid communities and competitive communities with a storage effect.
- Graduate Students
- Tasia Raymer (2008-present) is an applied mathematics
graduate student working on the evolution of dispersal.
- Will Tarantino (2006-present) is a graduate student of Emmett Duffy
(Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences) and myself. Will is studying the effects of adaptive foraging on food
web dynamics.
- Undergraduate Students
- Evan Saltzman (2005-present) is a senior math major at William and
Mary. Evan is studying the evolution of dispersal for predator-prey
interactions in source-sink environments. Evan will be going to GIT in Fall 2008.
- Matt Holden (2007-present) is a senior math major at UCD and is studying the effects
of spatial heterogeneity, patch size, and mean dispersal distance on metapopulation persistence. Matt will be going to Cornell in Fall 2008.
- Adam Carpenter (2007-present) is a rising senior math
major at William and Mary. In collaboration with Kristin France
(Nature Conservancy), Adam is working on the effects of spatial
heterogeneities in competitive interactions, dispersal rates, and
disturbances on biodiversity and ecosystem function.
Past Students/DEEP Members
- Graduate Students
- Peter Caldwell (2000-2001) was a graduate student at Western
Washington University. He did his master's project under my supervision on
"The Hartman-Grobman Theorem." Peter got a Ph.D. in Atmospheric
Science from the University of
Washington and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
- Daniel Graber (2000-2001) was a graduate student at Western
Washington University. He did his master's project under my supervision on
"Stochastic shocks lead to equilibrium selection in repeated games." Daniel is
currently a Mathematics Instructor Skagit Valley Community College.
- Chris Killingstad (2001-2002) was a graduate student at Western
Washington University. He did his master's project under my supervision on
"Stabilizing the Inverted Pendulum." Chris is currently an instructor at Everett Community College
- Bobby Smith (1998-1999) was a graduate student at Western
Washington University. He did his master's project under joint supervision of
Prof. Shen and myself on "Computing Normal Forms." Bobby is currently working
for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
- Undergraduate Students
- Jennifer "Jef" Akst (2003-2004) is a recent graduate of William
and Mary's biology department. Jef worked on modeling the evolution of
kleptoparasitism and currently is a graduate student in Wade's Lab at University of Indiana.
- Kevin Armstrong (2004) was an undergraduate math-computer science
major at William and Mary and worked on an NSF funded project. Kevin wrote
MatLab code for simulating continuous time Markov chain models of community
assembly. Since Fall 2004, Kevin has been a Ph.D. student in mathematics at
University of Maryland.
- Bill Dirks (1998-1999) was an undergraduate student at Western
Washington University. He did his senior honor project under my supervision on
"Spiking and Oscillation in Neuronal Models." Bill received a NSF pre-doctoral
fellowship in 1999 to attend Cornell as a graduate student in Applied
Mathematics.
- Jason Keagy (2002-2003) was
an undegradaute biology at William and Mary who collaborated with Dan Cristol and myself on the effects of replacing source habitats with sink habitats.
Jason is currently a PhD student at University of Maryland.
- Molly Kelton (2003-2004) was an undergraduate at Vassar College and
worked on an NSF funded REU project at William and Mary on competition in
source-sink environments. This work culminated in award winning
poster at 2004 Joint AMS meeting and in a paper that appeared in
the Journal of Animal Ecology.
- Seth Rittenhouse (2001-2002) was a student at Western Washington
University and worked on an NSF funded project concerning community assembly.
We showed that apparent competition (prey species sharing a common predator)
and exploitative competition (species competing for a common resource) can
lead to the "humpty dumpty effect" (i.e. a community of coexisting species
that can not be reassembled from its constituents) when community assembly
occurs slowly via rare one species invasion attempts. This work culminated in
a paper that appeared in Oikos. Since Fall 2004, Seth has been a Ph.D.
student in Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
- Eric Ruggieri (2004-2005) was an undergraduate math major at
Providence College. Eric analyzed the Schoener-Holt-Polis model of intraguild
predation that culminated in a paper that appeared in the
journal, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering. In Fall 2005, Eric
became a Ph.D. student in the applied mathematics program at Brown
University.
- Glory Tobiason (2000-2001) was a student at Western Washington
University that worked on an NSF funded project concerning the evolution of
consumers competing for two resources. This work work culminated in a paper that
appeared in the Journal of Mathematical Biology. She spent two years living on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, and is currently teaching math at an alternative high school in Washington DC.
- Jake Wamsley (2004-present) was biology major at
William and Mary. Jake studied the effect of spatial heterogeneity on
population abundance and persistence. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in
biochemistry at University of Virginia.
- Melanie Vejdani (2004-present) is an undergraduate math-economics
major at William and Mary who graduated in Spring 2005. Melanie is analyzing
the co-evolution of host-parasitoid interactions in spatially heterogeneous
environments. Our joint work culminated in a paper that will be appearing in
the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences