Projects & research interests

Trait-based species distribution modelling

  • We can now model the environmental response or niche of multiple species simultaneously using joint species distribution models.
  • But can we generalise interspecific differences in environmental niche using functional traits?
  • How transferable is a trait-based species distribution model across space, time, and taxa?
  • Published work:

Higher-order biotic interactions

  • Species pairs are often the study unit of biotic interactions.
  • In multispecies assemblages, however, “intermediary species” outside the focal pair can interfere with the direct pairwise interaction.
  • Regardless of the biological mechanism, these interferences can manifest as non-negligible higher-order statistical terms that, when ignored, can result in inaccurate predictions of community dynamics.
  • Under what conditions do we expect higher-order interactions to be strong? Where do we expect higher-order interactions to be prevalent?
  • Including higher-order statistical terms introduces a lot of extra parameters. How do we deal with such model complexities?
  • Published work:

Predicting tree growth and dimensions

Functional trait databases