Our research in conservation science addresses the critical challenge of predicting biotic responses to environmental change with the goal of informing practices that will mitigate the loss of ecosystem health and biodiversity. To approach this challenge, my lab develops and applies novel quantitative methods that integrate paleontological and modern data, highlighting the importance of trait-based data collected from specimens within natural history collections. These methods help researchers answer fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions related to the multifaceted mechanisms responsible for changes in species’ morphology, geography, and community through time.
Functional Traits and the Multi-trait Database
We are currently working on building a functional trait database to serve as a platform for promoting the usage of trait-based data for conservation. It will be an open-access tool available for species, community, and ecosystem conservation assessments and planning, and will be useful for global, national, and local conservation action. We evaluate the fit of traits at the community level to the environments in which they are found with functional trait data (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Equilibrium communities possess traits well-suited to where they are found (figure from PNAS Special Feature, McGuire et al. 2023).
Spatial Ecology and Conservation Paleobiology
The work in our lab is fundamentally interdisciplinary, integrating the fields of biogeography, conservation, and paleontology, and contributing to the emerging sub field of conservation paleobiology. We aim to conduct research that can be translated to inform biodiversity conservation through conservation assessment and action.
Our lab contributes to the development of ecometrics research, an approach that integrates paleontology and conservation biology by identifying trait-based metrics that can both reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions and identify community-level trait distributions best suited to modern or future environmental conditions. We also developed methods that allow us to track past movements of suitable habitats, providing context to modern and future spatial shifts in habitat positioning. We have also modeled available suitable habitat through time for several species of local conservation interest.