The alpine is particularly vulnerable to climate change, since alpine areas are warming faster than other areas and are often geographically isolated. The alpine also has lots of habitat heterogeneity. We're exploring local adaptation to microclimate in an alpine plant, Androsace septentrionalis, and how that will impact it's range dynamics with continued climate change.

This work is funded by NSF and is being done in collaboration with Nancy Emery, at the University of Colorado - Boulder.

Flowering time is a crucial determinant of plant fitness - and agricultural yield. We're studying how we can predict the optimal flowering time of sunflower varieties and leverage this information to better understand both the ecological and evolutionary drivers of climate adaptation, and improve stability of the food supply.

This work is funded by NSF and is being done in collaboration with a team of scientists at the University of Colorado - Boulder, led by Nolan Kane and Sarah Elmendorf.

Biological control agents are essentially planned and beneficial invasions, and we can use them to study evolutionary processes that happen during range expansion. The tamarisk leaf beetle, Diorhabda carinulata, underwent a rapid range expansion after its release to the US in 2001. We're studying how it has evolved during that expansion, from dispersal rates to dormancy timing and phenotypic plasticity. 

This work was funded by the USDA and is being done in collaboration with Ruth Hufbauer at Colorado State University, along with Amanda Stahlke, Ellyn Bitume, Paul Hohenlohe, and Dan Bean.