I am a population biologist interested in the ecology and evolution of plant-insect interactions. My primary focus is on how genotypic and phenotypic variation among individuals affects the long-term spatial and temporal dynamics of populations. I work on interactions between plants and their insect herbivores because plants and insects are amenable to experimentation and play important roles in both natural and agricultural communities. Studying the ecology of plant-insect s ystems allows me to focus on important basic research questions while also generating information that can be applied to the practical problems of developing mo re sustainable agriculture. Because the questions that I ask span levels of organization from characteristics of individuals to populations, and encompass both long and short time frames, I use a combination of greenhouse and field experiments with mathematical modeling in my research. My current projects include work on:

1. The influence of genetic variance in quality within plant populations on herbivore dynamics and spatial distributions (using a native wild strawberry and sp ecialist aphid on the coast of California)

2. The effect of induced resistance on spatial distributions of herbivores and plant damage (experiments with soybeans/Mexican bean beetles and tomatoes/tomato herbivores)

3. Effects of disturbance on the source-sink dynamics and pollination of a rare endemic plant (Mimulus angustatus, Napa county, CA)

4. Associations between aphid population growth rates and carrying capacities across genotypes of wild strawberry.