About

Our research aims to understand the factors that drive organisms to move and what consequences movement has for individuals, species, and communities.

Read the CBS blog posts about the lab and research here and the prairie dispersal project here.

See more about the Biological Theory Alliance (BioTA) at University of Minnesota here.

Upcoming

Dec-2019	Allison is giving a seminar in the Biology Department at Emory University
Jun-2020	Allison is attending a workshop on mathematics for evolution during range expansions at the Fields Institute in Toronto

Recent news & events

Nov-2019	Paper with Ben Ashby and Hanna Kokko on how dispersal can drive diversity by shaping rates of speciation was accepted in Oikos
Oct-2019	Allison gave a seminar in the Biology Department at Boston University
Oct-2019	Allison attended a workshop on Advancing Ecological Theory at Penn State University
Oct-2019	Amanda Gorton started a CBS Grand Challenges in Biology Postdoc on the causes and consequences of ragweed pollen distribution in urban areas, working with our lab and with Jesse Berman (in Environmental Health Sciences) and Bonnie Keeler (in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs)
Sep-2019	Lab alum Dennis Kim re-joined the lab and EEB to start his PhD.
Aug-2019	Lab representation at ESA (Ecological Society of America) 2019! Naven talked about migration strategy can depend on infection status, Lauren talked about how dispersal variation change estimates of population connectivity, and Topher talked about how genetic structure influences dispersal evolution during range shifts.
Jul-2019	Katie's paper with Lauren on species spillover in grasslands is out in Journal of Applied Ecology
Jul-2019	Topher's paper on climate-induced range shifts was accepted in The American Naturalist
Jul-2019	Lindsay's paper on how facilitation and competition shape seed dormancy was accepted in Population Ecology
Jul-2019	Katie wrapped up her technician position in the lab and is off to grad school in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Northeastern. Congrats!!
Jun-2019	Katie launched her Connectivity App which allows users to explore connectivity across Minnesota's grasslands. Check it out!
Jun-2019	Katie's paper with Allison, and Lauren on the use of Apps in restoration was accepted in Restoration Ecology
Jun-2019	Allison gave a talk at the EEID (Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases) 2019 Conference in Princeton, NJ
May-2019	Laurie joined the lab for the summer to work on a modeling project related to migration and parasites as part of the NSF grant with Meggan Craft, Marlene Zuk, and Sandra Binning
May-2019	Julie graduated and is off to grad school in math at the University of Utah Congrats!!
May-2019	Kate defended her PhD in math and is off to a postdoc position at Cornell University, then will be coming back to the area next year to start a faculty position at Carleton College. Congrats!!
May-2019	Paper with Meggan Craft, Marlene Zuk, and Sandra Binning looking at how the forms of parasite transmission and infection cost shape host migration strategy was accepted in Journal of Animal Ecology
May-2019	Topher Weiss-Lehman moved to the University of Wyoming where he will be starting a faculty position in the Botany Department. Congrats!!
Apr-2019	Katie Sperry was awarded an NSF GRFP. Congrats!
Mar-2019	Paper by lab alum Lauren Shoemaker, with Evelyn Hayhurst, Topher Weiss-Lehman, Alex Strauss, Anita Porath-Krause, Elizabeth Borer, and Eric Seabloom looking at pathogen manipulation of vectors was accepted in Ecology Letters
Mar-2019	Paper by lab alum Morganne Igoe, with Sunny Power, Nilsa Bosque-Perez and Angie Peace, looking at how modeling approach shapes the outcomes for vector-borne pathogen spread was accepted in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
Mar-2019	Paper with Pete Buston and Cass D'Aloia looking at how landscape structure affects dispersal kernel evolution is out in Am Nat here
Mar-2019	Allison led a session on causes and consequences of variation in animal movement at the 2019 Movement Ecology of Animals Gordon Research Conference in Italy
Jan-2019	Lauren Sullivan started a new position as an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri. Congrats!!
Nov-2018	Julie's paper with Allison, Keith Barker and Marlene Zuk showing that migrants can simultaneously have more and less parasite infection than residents is out in Proc B here
Nov-2018	Allison gave a talk on vector movement and pathogen spread as part of a special session on vector-borne diseases of plants, animals and humans at the Entomological Society of America meeting
Nov-2018	Lauren Sullivan's paper with Allison, Adam Clark, and Dave Tilman showing that dispersal kernels derived from plant traits can explain population/community-level patterns of recruitment and sucession is out in Ecology here
Oct-2018	Lauren Sullivan gave a a seminar in EEB at Washington University
Sep-2018	Paper with Pete Buston and Cass D'Aloia looking at how landscape structure affects dispersal kernel evolution was accepted in Am Nat
Sep-2018	Lauren Shoemaker moved to the University of Wyoming where she will be starting a faculty position in the Botany Department. Congrats!!
Sep-2018	Naven Narayanan joined the lab and EEB to start his PhD
Sep-2018	Damon Leach joined the lab in the fall to work on at UROP project with Topher on the dynamics of small, socially-structured populations
Aug-2018	Topher gave a talk at the Second Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Montpellier France
Aug-2018	Allison attended the SFI working group on Spatio-Temporal Patterning in Ecology
Aug-2018	ISBE 2018 was in Minneapolis, MN
Aug-2018	Awesome representation at ESA 2018! Lauren Shoemaker talked about vector movement behavior and plant pathogen spread, Lauren Sullivan and Katie both talked about plant dispersal and spillover in restored prairies, and Topher talked about dispersal evolution and keeping up with climate-induced range shifts.
Jul-2018	Katie Sperry re-joined the lab as a technician to help understand dispersal and connectivity in Minnesota's prairies
May-2018	Lauren Shoemaker gave a talk at the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases conference in Glasgow
May-2018	Dennis Kim joined the lab for the summer to work on a modeling project related to migration and parasites.
May-2018	Sandra Binning visited from the Université de Montréal and gave the EEB seminar.
May-2018	We ran a Market Science on Parasites on May 5th at the Midtown Farmers Market
Apr-2018	Lauren Sullivan's paper on how the gender composition of student groups impacts course performance is out here, in PLoS One
Mar-2018	Allison gave a talk in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder
Mar-2018	Lauren Shoemaker started her James S McDonnell Foundation postdoc fellowship
Mar-2018	Lauren Sullivan's paper on the impacts of multiple ecological stressors is out here, in Ecology Letters
Mar-2018	Allison was named an Early Career Fellow of the Ecological Society of America
Feb-2018	Topher gave a talk at the JF Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution at UW Madison as part of their Early Career Scientist Seminar Series
Jan-2018	Paper with Hanna Kokko and Mike Neubert on how sex differences and Allee effects influence the dynamics of sex structured invasions is (finally) out in Journal of Animal Ecology. This is part of a special feature on Allee Effects that results from the Organized Oral Session Allee Effects: Theory and Applications at ESA 2015.
Jan-2018	Allison gave a talk at the ASN Stand Alone Conference in Asilomar