Hi! I'm Brett Melbourne

I'm a mathematical ecologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

What we do
In my lab we not only do experiments and collect data but we also use mathematics and computational biology to figure out why species go extinct, why invasive species are so bad, and how best to maintain biodiversity.

Active funded projects include: (1) How populations move in response to climate change; (2) Extinction due to long term experimental habitat fragmentation. Other recent and current topics include invasion and disease ecology, consumer - resource interactions, coexistence in multispecies communities, and conservation ecology. Our study systems have included invasive plants, laboratory flour beetles, coral reef fish, freshwater streams, forest insects, bird communities, and animal diseases.

Recent notable papers
Science 2009 (also see Editor's summary and New York Times article).
Nature 2008 (also see Editor's summary and Guardian article).
Ecology Letters 2007, top 20 most read paper.

News
Our paper came out recently in Science 18 Sep 09. See links above.

I'm currently recruiting graduate and undergraduate students for exciting projects on climate change and extinction. See People.