Multi-phase US spread and habitat switching of a post-Columbian invasive, Sorghum halepense Sezen, Barney, Atwater, Pederson, Pederson, Chandler, Cox, Cox, Dotray, Kopec, Smith, Schroeder, Wright, Jiao, Kong, Goff, Auckland, Rainville, Pierce, Compton, Lemke, Philips, Kerr, Mettler, Paterson (pdf) I’m happy to announce that PLoS One has accepted Uzay Sezen’s paper documenting the population genetics of colonizing Johnsongrass (Sorghum […]
The mechanisms and consequences of interspecific interactions among plants Aschehoug, Brooker, Atwater, Maron & Callaway (pdf) I’m very pleased to announce that Annual Reviews of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics has accepted our review article documenting recent advances in our understanding of interspecific plant interactions. I am proud to have been a part of this group. […]
Intraspecific diversity buffers the inhibitory effects of soil biota Luo, Callaway & Atwater (link)(pdf) Congratulations to Wenbo Luo for recently having a paper accepted to Ecology! In this paper, Wenbo shows that soil microbes inhibit the growth of related bluebunch wheatgrass plants (Pseudoroegneria spicata). To do this, he collected soil from bluebunch populations varying in their […]
I presented the results of my environmental niche modeling work at the 2016 Weed Science Society of America Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I attended the meeting with my advisor, Jacob Barney, and Dan Tekiela, a graduate student in Jacob’s lab. The weather was lovely and we had an excellent time escaping winter’s grip to […]
An exotic invasive plant selects for increased competitive tolerance, but not competitive suppression, in a native grass Fletcher, Callaway & Atwater (pdf) Many congratulations to Rebecca Fletcher, who just had a paper accepted into Oecologia. Her paper shows that spotted knapweed, an invasive plant, selects for bluebunch wheatgrass plants that are tolerant of knapweed competition, but not […]
Propagule pressure alone cannot always overcome biotic resistance: The role of density-dependent establishment in four invasive species Barney, Ho & Atwater (link) I am very pleased to announce that we have just had a paper accepted for publication into Weed Research. This paper documents Master’s Student Matt Ho’s research into the role of propagule pressure in […]
I recently presented the results of my niche modeling work at the 2016 Northeastern Plant Pest and Soils Conference in Philadelphia. I went the the conference along with most of the rest of my postdoc advisor’s (Jacob Barney’s) lab and we had a great time. I met a lot of people, including the First American, Benjamin […]
Reconstructing changes in the genotype, phenotype, and climatic niche of an introduced species Atwater, Sezen, Goff, Kong, Paterson & Barney (link) Invasive species must deal with enormous environmental variation in their introduced ranges. Some evolve rapidly, and others tolerate a wide variety of conditions. We examined how one invader, Johnsongrass, has responded to environmental variation in North America. This devastating […]
The 2015 Hokie Half Marathon is officially vanquished! I set a PR (1:38:22) and had a lot of fun. The weather was absolutely beautiful and there over 1200 runners. It was a great time. Thank you to my cheer squad for keeping me going!
On Thursday at the 2015 Ecological Society of America meeting, I presented preliminary data from an analysis of the global distributions of 1135 introduced species. We find that species experience massive niche shifts as they cross continents. The magnitude of these niche shifts depends upon the methods used to remove sampling bias. These data have significant […]