Andrew R. Dyer
Ph.D. (Plant Ecology)
University of California,
Davis, 1996
Room: SBDG 101E (Science
Building)
Phone: (803) 641-3443
Research Interests
My research interests include
- scaling up from individual plant
characteristics and interactions to ecosystem processes
- the influence of invasive
species on plant interactions and resource dynamics at different
environmental scales
- the influence of seasonal
variation in resource availability on susceptibility of habitats to
invasion
- the importance of ecotype
formation vs. plasticity to the success of invasive species
- how the understanding of
interactions at different spatial and temporal scales can be used in the
conservation of native species and threatened habitats
Achieving these goals has been simplified somewhat by using annual species
and annual-dominated communities in semi-arid habitats as the model
experimental systems. Resource conditions in these communities are seasonally
heterogeneous and can be manipulated to simulate either environmental gradients
or changing climate conditions. This has facilitated the investigation into
many questions from adaptive plant responses to the interactions between
community composition and spatial and temporal resource heterogeneity. As a
consequence, my research and publications have focused on a several
inter-related topics within this field.
Previous research has been conducted in grassland habitats of California and in
stabilized dune communities in Israel,
two ecosystems that share similar climates and many congeneric
and conspecific plants. These experiments have
addressed fundamental topics in community and ecosystem ecology: To what extent
are plant communities structured by abiotic
environmental factors rather than by biotic interactions (i.e., by so-called Wallacian vs Darwinian forces)?
As resource availability and productivity change, either along environmental
gradients or by climate change, are resource-based or competition-based models
more likely to describe plant interactions and large scale shifts in
vegetation? Are concepts such as plant functional types useful for predicting
community succession trajectories and future conditions at the ecosystem level?
Integrating from one scale to higher scales of organization is the ultimate
goal of ecology, but mechanistic experimentation has nearly always been
conducted at the plant-plant interaction level. I have been fortunate to work
on projects that have taken unique approaches toward understanding the process
of scaling up from the individual plant to the entire community. In Israel, our
research includes the novel aspect of manipulating entire plant communities
while maintaining proportional representation of individual species. This
allows the measurement of changes in competitive relationships at both
individual and community levels across the productivity gradient. In addition
to making predictions about the validity of broad statements concerning
resource competition and community structure, we are able to address the
validity of using plant-plant interaction experiments for scaling up to and
predicting community-level competitive outcomes. The many papers that will
emerge from these experiments are just entering the publication stage.
In collaborative work with colleagues in California, I am investigating changes in
the molecular and quantitative genetics of invasive species native to the Mediterranean and Eurasia,
with particular focus on annual grasses. This research compares adaptive
variation in populations of weedy species to determine whether shifts in
genetic variation and morphology can be correlated with invasive potential. Our
interest lies not only in the community and ecosystem
level effects of invasive species, but in identifying adaptive characteristics
that enable successful invasion. This research had a strong applied as well as
basic aspect; the conservation and restoration of natural habitats and their
component species is of great interest, yet understanding the inherent
evolutionary potential that enables exotic plant species to invade and dominate
such systems is necessary and lacking.
Most recently, with my move to South
Carolina, I have begun looking at the ecology of
Carolina Bays, wetland areas that are hydrologically
isolated and widely distributed in the woodlands throughout the southeast. In
collaboration with the Savannah River Site and the Savannah River Ecological
Laboratory (University
of Georgia), I am hoping
to use these well-studied wetlands to investigate the relationship between
seasonal resource fluctuation and community invasibility.
The first project has been to conduct a vegetation survey of a restored Carolina Bay after 9 years of regrowth
to assess the success of the restoration effort in terms of species richness,
diversity, and composition.
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Courses Taught
ABIO 102 Introductory
Biology (Biological Science II)
ABIO 370 Ecology and
Evolution
ABIO 570 Principles of
Ecology
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Vitae
University of South Carolina Aiken
Copyright © 2005 by the Board of
Trustees of the University
of South Carolina
Comments to billj@usca.edu 7.12.05
URL: http://www.usca.edu