My research interests focus on the ways that interactions between insects and their host plants are affected by chemistry and the environment. This includes elucidating how ecosystem traits affect host plant suitability, and how this ultimately affects the community of insects within their ecosystem. My current and previous research includes the following systems:

Climate change

In collaboration with Rick Lindroth and Ken Raffa at UW-Madison and Peter Reich at University of Minnesota, we are investigating the effects of climate warming on insect-plant relationships.  Climate can affect both insect and plant phenology as well as plant defensive chemistry and host food quality.  These environmentally mediated changes can have major implications for forest health and ecosystem dynamics under insect outbreaks. By understanding when food becomes available to insects under future climates, we can predict insect success as well as host plant resilience.

Plant defenses

Plant defenses play a major role in both the top-down and bottom-up effects that moderate insect pest populations. I am interested in exploring and defining how these defenses operate and how they affect multi-trophic interactions in nature.