The lab’s research program is focused on coastal plant ecology and spatial analysis.  Ecosystems of interest are sand dunes, salt marshes, estuaries/bayous, and adjacent upland habitats.  The typical research approach incorporates field-based experimentation with spatial analysis and modeling.

Basic research falls within the field of community ecology, with emphasis on how individual plant interactions influence community dynamics of succession, retrogression, and migration.  Applied research often involves principles of ecological restoration.

We are specifically interested in spatial processes of coastal plant migration.  Questions of interest include how coastal vegetation responds to and modifies its physical environment, particularly in the context of long-term sea level rise versus short-term extreme disturbances.   We study how plants migrate landward in response to these forces, and whether the plant community can mediate this migration response