Landscape Ecology is the study of interrelationships between the spatial organization of landscapes and the ecological processes acting upon them. Our research in landscape ecology has focused on soil-water control over the distribution of plant functional types; formation of subcanopy resource islands and their disturbance by bioturbation by feral pigs; effects of land fragmentation on habitat connectivity; and the effects of landscape heterogeneity on the accuracy of mapping using remote sensing data.

Biogeography is the study of the geographic distribution of life and the processes that produce these distributions. Biogeographers endeavor to understand the reasons why different forms and assemblages of life are found in different areas. It is not a descriptive science, but rather seeks to explain observed patterns in relation to ecological, historical, and evolutionary processes. Our work in biogeography has focused on patterns of species richness on the California Channel Islands, distribution of plant richness and turnover in the southeastern US, social and environmental drivers of bird-flu evolution, and climate impacts on the range, productivity, and phenology of biomes in the U.S., China, and globally.

The study of Social-Ecological Systems emphasizes the effects of human behaviors on ecosystems and their function, and how these effects relate, in turn, to the sustainability and resilience of both human societies and their supporting ecosystems. Our work on social-ecological systems has focused on land-management decision making in cooperative conservation partnerships, Onslow Bight, NC; trade-offs among approaches for prioritizing land parcels for conservation, Sandhills, NC; and wildlife conservation on and around military installations. We have a particular focus on island systems including patterns of plant diversity, and the ecological consequences of introduced feral pigs on the California Channel Islands, CA, and new work on the social and ecological costs and benefits of novel ecosystems in the Galapagos Islands. An emphasis in our research group is on sustainability and resilience of social-ecological systems on islands. In this work we focus on policy and politics, resources, economics, biodiversity, and both ecosystem and human health as indices of social-ecological functional relationships.

Remote Sensing is an approach, referring to the collection of data from the Earth's upper surfaces and atmosphere using airborne or space-based instruments. In our group we have used remote sensing to map canopy structure, woody plant encroachment, land cover, productivity, and phenology in a variety of contexts relating to research in the areas described above. Our research group also uses statistical, spatial, and mechanistic modeling in addressing our research questions. These approaches include statistical models for deriving information from remotely sensed data, spatial models of species distributions, process-based spatial ecosystem models, GIS models of landscape resistance and connectivity for animal dispersal, and other GIS-based modeling activities. We use geospatial data, field data, survey data, and historical documents to conduct theoretically grounded work in the research areas described above.