I primarily study the population ecology of invasive plants, with additional interests in a wide range of ecological topics. I hope to increase my research in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and learning over the next few years. My main research investigated how small populations of invasive or potentially invasive plants act differently than larger populations. Of course, small populations of invasive species may sound like an oxymoron, but through introduction, long-distance dispersal, herbicide resistance mutations and/or management programs, small populations often appear at critical transition points in the invasion process. I was originally designing a study of pollen limitation in invasion, but ended up working with several mechanisms including pollen, self-incompatibility, inbreeding and other "Allee effects". Working with Lolium multiflorum or ryegrass, I measured the effects of population size variation independently from genetic diversity. The two clearly had a synergistic effect decreasing the quality and quantity of seeds together and independently. Since many invasions, even those introduced in large quantities for horticulture, appear in many small patches that are effectively independent, I believe that these Allee effects influence which introductions become invaders and which fail.
