Principal Investigator:

Valerie Eviner
veviner@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-8538
Web

I received my B.A. from Rutgers University and PhD from University of California Berkeley (working with Terry Chapin and Mary Firestone). My research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of plant-soil interactions and applying this understanding to ecosystem management, restoration, invasions, and rangelands in a changing environment. Most of my work occurs in California grasslands on working landscapes. Other study systems include: wetlands, degraded grasslands in Inner Mongolia, Northeastern forests (particularly understory dynamics), alpine meadows and forests, and cropping systems in California, Illinois, and New York.

Graduate Students:

Jill Baty
jhbaty@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

I study grassland restoration and land management. I am examining the role of conservation and restoration in the context of global change and, specifically, how conservation managers can identify the effects of climate change on their lands. I am also interested in the way soils influence plant communities, especially with respect to grassland restoration.  I earned my undergraduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before starting at UC Davis, I worked for a county planning department and a conservation non-profit.

Taraneh Emam
tmemam@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

My research focuses on the relationship between invasive plants and soil biotic communities.  My previous research at the Bodega Marine Reserve, a coastal prairie system, has shown a positive response of an invasive grass (Bromus diandrus) to soil biota from native grassland, while a co-occurring native grass (Hordeum brachyantherum) had a negative response. 
Current research questions include:
How does soil biota facilitate or hinder invasion by non-native plants?
How does this vary by soil conditions and microhabitats? 
How do invasive plants, once established, alter soil biotic communities and what are the effects of this on native plants and on nutrient cycling?
How can knowledge of interactions between soil biota and invasive plants be used to help make effective restoration and conservation decisions, or to manage agricultural and rangeland weeds in a more sustainable manner?

Kelly Garbach
kgarbach@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

I am interested in balancing conservation goals and agricultural production needs, and determining how on-farm management practices influence ecosystem processes. My current fieldwork in Costa Rica explores provision of ecosystem services in tropical farming systems. Other projects include research on conceptual frameworks used in ecosystem assessment and environmental mitigation in California. Before entering the Ecology program at UC Davis, I studied anthropology at Loyola University Chicago and worked with non-profit groups in Chile, Argentina, and San Francisco.

Kelly Gravuer
klgravuer@ucdavis.edu
530-752-3552

My interests focus on the interaction of climate change with community-level ecological processes.  As climatic shifts cause some plant species in resident communities to become poorly-adapted to local sites, what affects the extent to which better-adapted species can colonize and increase?  How might resident species impede this turnover process, and what are the implications for community function? I am also fascinated by the role of historical contingency in shaping plant community trajectories.  For example, how does climate in the year of establishment interact with species arrival order to determine long-term community composition?  Finally, I am interested in how climate change may alter feedback processes between plant and associated soil microbial communities. Before coming to Davis, I worked for the conservation organization NatureServe. My M.S. is from Lincoln University (New Zealand), where I studied the relative contributions of human and biological factors to invasion success.  My B.S. is from Brown University, where I studied the dispersal biology and conservation genetics of a rare plant species, as well as developing a lifelong love of all things botanical.

Sarah Hoskinson
sahoskinson@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

I am interested in how plant-soil feedbacks regulate change and resilience in plant communities.  I study the context-dependence of feedback mechanisms across temporal and spatial scales in order to understand the role of feedbacks in restoration and management.  My research takes place in managed California grasslands.

Benjamin Waitman
bawaitman (at) ucdavis.edu
530-752-3552

II received a BS in biology from the College of William and Mary and an MS in biology from the University of Nevada before coming to Davis. My MS work focused on seed dispersal and scatter hoarding behavior in rodents. I am currently expanding my research into plant-animal interactions. I am interested in the extent to which these interactions can be explained by various theoretical frameworks. When are plant-animal interactions (both positive and negative) context-dependent and what does this mean for conservation managers in a changing climate? I am currently examining these questions in the high alpine zone of the Sierra Nevada. 

Lab Manager:

Joanne Heraty
jmheraty@ucdavis.edu
530-752-5609

Before coming to the Eviner Lab I studied Cultural Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz and received an MS degree at UC Davis in International Agricultural Development where my research focused on the conservation of maize genetic diversity by immigrant farmers in Southern California's urban gardens. More recently I have become interested in native plant communities and restoration ecology research. I am currently assisting with several research experiments examining plant- soil interactions in California's grassland ecosystems.

Lab Technician

Rebecca Devereux
radevereux@ucdavis.edu
530-752-5609