Our research areas are population dynamics, species niche modeling, and applications of each to environmental management and policy. Our group tries to ask questions of greater generality than to a single organism or ecological relationship but with enough specificity to provide a particular interesting twist or challenge. Experimental work has used water fleas (Daphnia spp.) as a model organism, but some projects have used flour beetles (Tribolium spp.) and springtails (Folsomia spp.). This work aims to understand basic but still poorly understood small-population phenomena: demographic stochasticity, Allee effects, and extinction. Complementing this basic research, applied projects have focused on aquatic invasive species to answer questions like how many individuals it takes to establish a viable population, what characteristics predispose species to being good colonizers or having strong impacts on ecosystems, and where and how fast invading species will spread. New projects are aimed at extending tools and theory used in these projects to understanding outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases (SARS, West Nile Virus, Avian Influenza Viruses) and for forecasting biogeographic range shifts from global and regional changes in climate. Plans for future work include: Experimental extinction with Daphnia and Folsomia Population dynamics of West Nile virus in urban environments Computational methods for niche identification from non-equilibrium populations and applications to disease risk mapping and species redistribution from climate change Evolutionary ecology, population biology, and conservation of aquatic invertebrates in temporary habitats