Skip to Content

University of Colorado Boulder
Search

Search

Other ways to search:

  • Events Calendar
  • Campus Map

Davies Lab

College of Arts and Sciences
Davies Lab

Main menu

  • Home
  • People
  • Publications
  • Research
  • Teaching

Mobile menu

  • Home
  • People
  • Publications
  • Research
  • Teaching

Home

Welcome to the Davies lab!

Margules photo
The Wog Wog Experiment

Most of the work in our lab is within the Wog Wog fragmentation experiment in southeastern Australia -- a large-scale, long-term experiment, now in its 33rd year. The experiment was established by CSIRO scientists in 1985. We continue to collaborate with CSIRO, and our recent work on beetles has been funded by NSF. We study how landscape fragmentation affects populations, communities and ecosystem processes in an experimental context. Wog Wog also presents an excellent context in which to experimentally test spatial community theory at realistic spatial scales.

video
Video about the experiment

Undergraduate Matthew McAllister created this documentary about our work.

fieldwork
In the field June-July, 2018

Anna Spiers, Scott Nordstrom and Brett Melbourne collecting tree data.

lab and alumni
Lab and alumni, August 2017
What we do
What we do

We are community ecologists, focused on the persistence of species and communities in heterogeneous, fragmented, and disturbed landscapes. We study extinction, community assembly and disassembly. We use the focus of spatial scale to understand the processes that determine how communities are structured (see what I have been up to). 

Dr. Kendi Davies
Associate Professor

ESA 2018
ESA meeting, August 2018

Rachel presented her work on the trophic position of funnel-web spiders in forest fragments. Theory predicts that isolating communities on fragments should collapse foodwebs. Rachel's result condradicts these predictions.

Matt presented his work on a small parasite network in forest fragments. Fragmentation disrupted the network, removing parasites from fragments. Over time, the network slowly recoverd but not completely. Why not is currently a mystery.

Anna presented her individual based model on tree growth in Eucalyptus fragments. Anna is working to understand how reduced competition at edges alters growth.

Kendi co-organized an Inspire session with Morgan Ernest and Christie Bahlai on rapid transitions in long-term data.

Julian Resasco
"Generalist predator's niche shifts reveal ecosystem changes in an experimentally fragmented landscape"

Recent work by postdoctoral fellow, Julian Resasco. Fragmentation does not reduce the trophic level at which a generalist predator skink feeds but does result in niche shifts. Read the paper to find out why.

Fieldwork
Fieldwork at Wog Wog, summer 2017

Rachel, Helen and Matt in the field.

Wog Wog
In the field, summer (austral winter) 2017

The crew. Rebuilding all 376 pitfall traps.

JE paper
Short-term responses do not predict long-term responses

See former graduate student John Evan's beetle work: "Short‐ and long‐term effects of habitat fragmentation differ but are predicted by response to the matrix".

The best predictor of a species' response to habitat fragmentation was its response in the matrix habitat surrounding fragments. What is fascinating is that the magnitude of a species response in fragments was predicted by the magnitude of its response in the matrix. We are currently investigating this response ratio for more species.

Davies Lab

kendi.davies@colorado.edu
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
UCB 334
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309

University of Colorado Boulder

University of Colorado Boulder
© Regents of the University of Colorado
Privacy • Legal & Trademarks • Campus Map

Return to the top of the page