How do we restore degraded landscapes?
This is a central question in the Brudvig Lab. To answer it, we take a three-pronged approach:
1.Understand how humans impact the biodiversity and functioning of ecosystems.
2.Develop and test approaches for ecological restoration of human-damaged ecosystems and landscapes.
3.Use restored ecosystems to test fundamental ecological questions, such as the controls over community assembly and the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
Much of our work takes place in Midwestern (prairie, oak savanna) and southeastern (longleaf pine savanna) U.S. ecosystems, focusing on plant populations and communities, and plant-animal interactions.