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 and Post-docs:

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?

Tracy Erwin
tlerwin@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

My research interests focus on the restoration of rare plants in ecosystems facing significant invasive pressure. My M.S. examined trends in recruitment limitation for endangered Hawaiian plants and focused on fruit loss of one particular rare plants, Delissea kauaienis. Currently, I am investigating interactions between a rare California native plant, Cordylanthus palmatus, and its neighbors in the alkali grassland community. Additionally, my research looks at the effects of changing abiotic conditions on plant community interactions in alkali wetland systems in California.

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.

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.

Marguerite Mauritz
mmauritz@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

Undergraduate : BSc Biology, Durham University, UK
Since I am an invasive species myself, as an international student and having spent my childhood growing up in several different countries, I am interested in invasive species and the response of plant communities to change. I would like to understand how plant community dynamics shift across natural gradients, through natural disturbance, invasive species pressure and human disturbance. Ideally I want to approach the questions I ask on multiple scales, and use my research to inform restoration and conservation efforts.
Currently I am investigating how fire changes soil nutrient dynamics in Coastal Sage Scrub (CSS) and how invasion-driven conversion of CSS to annual herbs and grasses alters the water dynamics of Coastal Sage Scrub.

Anne Marie Panetta
ampanetta@ucdavis.edu
530-754-8729

I am interested the nature and rate of evolution in response to environmental change.  More specifically, I study populations of Androsace septentrionalis, Rock Jasmine, in an attempt to understand the degree to which genetic diversity influences adaptive ability in response to climate change.  I conduct my research in and around Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, a remote field station nestled in the beautiful Rockies of southwestern Colorado. 

Barbara Swedo

(post-doc)
blswedo@ucdavis.edu
530-752-5609

I graduated from Loyola University (Chicago) in 2002 with a B.S. in Biology, and earned my Ph.D. at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 2008.  My graduate work investigated biotic and abiotic controls on rhizosphere bacterial community structure, including the functional implications of changes to these communities and to the strength and direction of associated feedbacks between plant and soil communities.  I am also interested in looking at factors influencing exotic plant species establishment and proliferation, and how this process may be influenced by the overall response of natural communities to external pressures (both natural and anthropogenic).

Lab Manager:

Naomi Clark         
nmclark@ucdavis.edu
530-752-5609

I graduated from West Virginia University in 2004 with a BS in Biology and from the University of Nevada Reno in 2007 with an MS in Environmental and Natural Resource Science. While my undergraduate research focused on root contributions to soil respiration in Eastern US forests, my graduate work examined responses of root respiration and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the Mojave Desert. Currently, I am assisting with research in California grasslands examining plant-soil responses to global change and invasive species. We are also examining contributions of seedlings and residual dry matter as nutrient sources for grassland species

Lab Technician:

Lilly Hayden
lmhayden@ucdavis.edu
530-752-5609

I graduated with a B.S. in Ecology & Evolution from UC Santa Barbara where I worked on projects examining the maintenance of species diversity in native plant communities as well as the factors controlling the success of biological invasions. I am currently assisting with several projects investigating plant-soil interactions and invasion dynamics in California rangelands.