DIMENSIONS of Biodiversity: The Evolutionary & Genetic Basis of Ecosystem Functioning
The past two decades of work have clearly shown that species diversity exerts direct and substantial control over the productivity of whole ecosystems. This projet asks "Can the impacts of modern speceis loss on the productivity of ecosystems be predicted from the evolutionary relationships and levels of genetic divergence among species?"

Nanoparticles in the Environment
With the rapid development of nanotechnology, little is known about the possible environmental, health, and safety impacts of nanomaterials. This project asks "Do nanoparticles have unintended impacts on freshwater food-webs and, if so, how does the complexity of a food-web mitigate the impacts of pollutants?"

Restoration of Chinook Salmon in Streams & Rivers
Many attempts to restore degraded ecosystems assume that if we restore a habitat to its original state, organisms will naturally re-colonize leading to a normal and functional food-web (often dubbed the Field of Dreams Hypothesis ... “if you build it, they will come”). This project asks "Does habitat restortation in streams enhances the recovery of Chinook salmon and the food-webs they rely on?"

Which Comes First ... Diversity or Productivity?
Biologists have long known that species diversity is controlled by the productivity of ecosystems. Contemporary studies have turned this paradigm around by showing that biodiversity controls, rather than responds to, the production of biomass. This projects seeks to resolve this Chicken or Egg paradox by asking "Is biodiversity the cause, or the consequence of ecosystem productivity?"

Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Scale (2006 - 2010)
While the most striking feature of our planet is its great variety of life, one of the most pervasive environmental changes of our time is the global loss of biological diversity. This project asks "At what spatial and temporal scales will biodiversity loss affect vital ecosystem processes such as primary production and nutrient cycling?"

Fish Biodiversity in Mexico (2006 - 2008)
One of our goals is to identify the causes of species loss so that we can predict which species are most prone to extinction and make priorities for conservation. Working in some of the most densely populated ecosystems on Earth, this projects asks " What are the causes of freshwater fish extinction in Mexico, and can we identify biodiversity' hotspots' that are priorities for conservation?"

Biodiversity and Biocontrol (2002 - 2006)
A widely held view in the agricultural sciences is that effective pest management requires a diversity of generalist and specialist enemies, and a complement of predators, parasitoids, and pathogens. While intuitively appealing, this hypothesis remains largely untested. This project asks "Do more diverse assemblages of natural enemies reduce the frequency and severity of pest outbreaks?"