Are rare species maintained by stronger NDD? A still-unresolved problem A central focus in ecology is identifying mechanisms that maintain species diversity, particularly the coexistence of rare and common species. Substantial empirical evidence shows that rare species experience stronger negative density dependence than common species. This result is inconsistent with classical [...]

The origin and fate of megadiversity: A look from the northern Andes Northern South America harbors an extraordinary share of the world's biological diversity, and explaining how that diversity came to be has long occupied biogeographers. This talk brings together two lines of work in my lab on how tropical [...]

Revisiting generality in the global latitudinal gradient in species richness across ocean and land (and the 20°C effect) Recent discoveries show that the global latitudinal gradient in marine species richness is bimodal, peaking in mid-latitudes (not at the equator as commonly believed). The dip at the equator has been getting [...]

Climate, disturbances, and human activities as drivers of tropical forest and savanna dynamics across temporal scales Tropical forests and savannas are often described as alternative stable states maintained by feedbacks between disturbances (especially fire) and vegetation structure, although the strength and generality of these feedbacks remain debated. Their limited representation [...]

Phylogenetic models of historical biogeography Fully understanding how any species evolved involves knowing where it lived. As the complete biogeographic history for most lineages cannot be directly observed, biologists often use phylogenetic models to reconstruct ancestral species ranges and to infer regional rates of dispersal, speciation, and extinction. This talk will [...]

Forecasting like a climate scientist - predicting biodiversity change in the Anthropocene Biodiversity and ecosystems are degrading worldwide in response to multiple anthropogenic pressures. Yet, our ability to anticipate these changes remains limited. Current approaches are largely retrospective, making it difficult to evaluate future risks or the consequences of different [...]

Biodiversity patterns in environmental space Ever since Aristotle suggested that the distributions of organisms were related to environmental factors and Humboldt travelled the world observing dramatic differences in species richness depending on climate, scientists have been keenly aware that climate strongly influences the distribution and persistence of species on earth. Given [...]

Scaling Marine Biodiversity: Insights from a Trait-Based Framework Marine ecosystems are shaped by complex ecological and evolutionary processes that operate across spatial scales, from fine local gradients to broad biogeographical patterns. Capturing how biodiversity emerges from these drivers requires moving beyond traditional taxonomic approaches toward integrative frameworks that explicitly incorporate functional [...]

Ecology & Evolution in Spatial Structured Environments Ecological and evolutionary dynamics occur in environments that are intrinsically spatially structured, yet spatial environmental heterogeneity is often treated as a statistical complication (e.g., a nuisance term to be removed, a source of spatial autocorrelation to be corrected, or variance to be averaged out) [...]