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 […]
Testing the mechanisms of diversity-dependent overyielding in a grass species Atwater & Callaway (2016)(link) I’m very pleased to announce that Ray Callaway and I have just had a paper published in Ecology. In this paper, we find that genetically diverse populations of bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata) yield about 50% more biomass than populations with low diversity. This […]
Root contact responses and the positive relationship between intraspecific diversity and ecosystem productivity Yang, Callaway & Atwater (2015) (link) I’m very pleased to announced that Lixue’s manuscript has just been accepted by Annals of Botany: Plants. In this paper, we find that bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudorogneria spicata) plants are able to recognize the identity of their neighbors even […]
On Thursday, at the Weed Science Society of America meeting in Lexington, I presented the results of a large scale survey of phenotypic differentiation in 499 accessions of Johnsongrass (Sorghum halepense) from 70 populations throughout the United States. Jacob Barney — my postdoctoral advisor — was initially scheduled to present, but I took his place […]