Food webs

We explore the structure, complexity and dynamics of food webs. We use optimal foraging theory to define the rules linking predators and prey. We predict the impacts of multiple simultaneous threats to ecosystems.

Extinctions

How does community structure mediate secondary extinction cascades and underpin marine ecosystem resilience during rapid climate change?

In collaboration with palaeontologists at the University of Leeds, the CASCADE project investigates how the structure of marine food webs determines whether an ecosystem collapses or survives during rapid climate change. By reconstructing ancient feeding networks and simulating extinction cascades, we test if modern ocean communities have evolved greater resilience to stressors like global warming and acidification compared to their prehistoric ancestors.

Optimal Foraging

We explore how optimal foraging and other traits underpin predictions about the dynamics and stability of communities facing multiple simultaneous threats.

Stressors

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Stability

How does food web structure determine the temporal stability of ecological communities?

We work on how community structure and species interactions affect community stability.