Projects
Soil and Leaf-litter Biodiversity along an Elevational Gradient
Agroecosystems have provided me with a great sandbox where I could control biotic and abiotic variables. However, there are limitations to the research context that restrict my ability to fully explore the complexity of the relationship between invertebrate community structure and the functions they provide. To better understand this relationship requires a more diverse, natural experiment.
The Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), in northwestern Costa Rica, is a biodiversity hotspot - estimated home to at least 2.6 % of global diversity (Smith et al., 2014). The natural (elevation) and anthropogenic (forest degradation/agriculture) gradients within ACG provide an excellent opportunity to understand how soil biodiversity varies over naturally occurring abiotic and biotic gradients.