Macroecology and Conservation of Tropical Mammal Communities
We are biodiversity scientists. We combine observational data with statistical models to investigate questions at the interface of ecology and conservation. The primary goals of our research are to identify mechanisms that structure tropical mammal communities over space and time and understand how tropical mammals respond to past, present, and future global change.
Community and MacroecologyWe study the drivers of variation in ecological communities over space and time with an emphasis on tropical mammals.
(Photo: Tim Laman) |
Global Change BiologyHabitat loss, forest fragmentation, and over-harvesting are some of the most critical threats to biodiversity worldwide. We study how these aspects of global change affect tropical wildlife.
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Conservation BiologyWe conduct research in collaboration with TEAM, a global tropical biodiversity monitoring network.
(Photo: Benjamin Drummond) |
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Statement of support for inclusiveness and diversity As a lab we express solidarity with MSU's Office of Civil Rights to contribute to a safe, inclusive and equitable campus community by working to combat discrimination and inequality, which not only permeate our society but occur in academia as well. Although we recognize we have substantial work to do, we are firmly committed to work towards university goals of expanding and supporting diversity and fostering inclusiveness in our lab. We recognize and celebrate the contributions of diverse perspectives, ideas and backgrounds in all our endeavors. We commit ourselves to creating welcoming, safe spaces and we invite feedback and conversations so that we can continue to do better. Our lab policies are available here. |
Lab News!
June 2026: Lab dinner with Justin Brashares during his visit to Kellogg Biological Station as an Eminent Ecologist!
May 2026: Lydia's invited perspective for Science entitled "Tracking human mobility for wildlife conservation" is published!
Chia's new PNAS paper is highlighted in a PNAS Commentary!
Congratulations to Corrina on receiving an American Society of Mammalogy Grant-in-Aid of Research for her dissertation fieldwork!
Miguel and Irina give fantastic lightning talks at the EEB Symposium!
April 2026: Huge congratulations to Chia on the publication of her manuscript entitled "Historical legacies shape continental variation in mammal food webs" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences! Check out the the story by MSU, which has been picked up by >45 news outlets, including The Independent a leading UK newspaper, La Nacion a leading newspaper in Argentina, Nautilus Magazine, and Popular Science!
Congratulations to Annie for receiving the Outstanding Published Research in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Award at Rice for her Ecology Letters paper!
Congratulations to Corrina for receiving a Shaver Fellowship for dissertation fieldwork in Central America!
Congratulations to Callie Rose for her NSF GRFP Honorable Mention! Check out the MSU story here!
March 2026: Corrina and Miguel present posters at the 2026 Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference!
The lab hosts Dr. Sara Beery from MIT as an invited EEB seminar speaker!
Congratulations to Annie on the publication of her first dissertation chapter - from our NSF Macrosystems Biology grant - in Ecology Letters! The paper is entitled “Food web similarity increases with productivity similarity at a continental scale”. Check out the MSU article and news coverage by Earth.com!
MSU College Spotlight: College of Natural Science “Species in crisis: big datasets are key to beating the biggest problem in 65M years” features Lydia and Elise Zipkin!
February 2026: Welcome to the lab, Callie Rose, we are so thrilled you will be joining the IBIO PhD program in the fall!
Lab dinner at Joe’s on Jolly!
Lydia joins the editorial board at Global Ecology and Biogeography as an Associate Editor!
January 2026: Congratulations to Kai on the inclusion of his Methods in Ecology and Evolution paper from our NSF Macrosystems grant in a Special Feature: Conservation, Ecology and Artificial Intelligence – Advances and Symbiotic Solutions!
Lydia gives an oral presentation at the International Biogeography Society meeting in Aarhus, Denmark on Annie’s manuscript in press at Ecology Letters and a poster on Kai’s optimal transport methods in Methods in Ecology and Evolution!
December 2025: Lab lunch at the Jolly Pumpkin!
September 2025: Lydia's abstract accepted for an oral presentation at The International Biogeography Society meeting in Denmark, January 2026!
August 2025: Fall semester launches in full force! Lydia is teaching IBIO 355: Ecology this semester and is teaching in the EEB graduate program quantitative core course series.
Manuscript published at Methods in Ecology and Evolution from Lydia's NSF Macrosystems Biology grant with Cesar Uribe! Kai Hung led the paper with major contributions from Annie Finneran. The paper is entitled 'Quantifying functionally equivalent species and ecological network dissimilarity with optimal transport distances".
Lydia presents a talk with Chia and Annie as coauthors entitled "Macroecological signatures of historical extinctions on contemporary mammal food webs" at ESA in Baltimore!
July 2025: Huge congratulations to Matt as he departs the lab to start his NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship!
June 2025: Corrina presents a poster and Irina gives a talk at the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation meeting in Mexico!
Miguel presents a poster at the American Society of Mammalogists meeting at Purdue!
Dr. Miguel Lurgi, Associate Professor of Bioscience at Swansea University in Wales, visits the lab for two weeks!
Annie Finneran conducts her field season at Udzungwa Mountains National Park, a TEAM site in Tanzania!
May 2025: Lydia's abstract accepted for ESA!
April 2025: Lydia gives an invited seminar for the International Biogeography Society Funk Lecture series!
Corrina and Miguel awarded travel grants from EEB to present posters at the Association for Tropical Ecology and Conservation (ATBC) conference and American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) conference this summer!
Irina selected to participate in highly competitive workshop on trait evolution!
Lydia gives a seminar for EEB at MSU!
March 2025: Lydia participates in the sMacrobehaviour synthesis working group focused on disentangling the drivers of geographic variation in vertebrate behavior at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig (iDiv)!
May 2026: Lydia's invited perspective for Science entitled "Tracking human mobility for wildlife conservation" is published!
Chia's new PNAS paper is highlighted in a PNAS Commentary!
Congratulations to Corrina on receiving an American Society of Mammalogy Grant-in-Aid of Research for her dissertation fieldwork!
Miguel and Irina give fantastic lightning talks at the EEB Symposium!
April 2026: Huge congratulations to Chia on the publication of her manuscript entitled "Historical legacies shape continental variation in mammal food webs" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences! Check out the the story by MSU, which has been picked up by >45 news outlets, including The Independent a leading UK newspaper, La Nacion a leading newspaper in Argentina, Nautilus Magazine, and Popular Science!
Congratulations to Annie for receiving the Outstanding Published Research in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Award at Rice for her Ecology Letters paper!
Congratulations to Corrina for receiving a Shaver Fellowship for dissertation fieldwork in Central America!
Congratulations to Callie Rose for her NSF GRFP Honorable Mention! Check out the MSU story here!
March 2026: Corrina and Miguel present posters at the 2026 Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference!
The lab hosts Dr. Sara Beery from MIT as an invited EEB seminar speaker!
Congratulations to Annie on the publication of her first dissertation chapter - from our NSF Macrosystems Biology grant - in Ecology Letters! The paper is entitled “Food web similarity increases with productivity similarity at a continental scale”. Check out the MSU article and news coverage by Earth.com!
MSU College Spotlight: College of Natural Science “Species in crisis: big datasets are key to beating the biggest problem in 65M years” features Lydia and Elise Zipkin!
February 2026: Welcome to the lab, Callie Rose, we are so thrilled you will be joining the IBIO PhD program in the fall!
Lab dinner at Joe’s on Jolly!
Lydia joins the editorial board at Global Ecology and Biogeography as an Associate Editor!
January 2026: Congratulations to Kai on the inclusion of his Methods in Ecology and Evolution paper from our NSF Macrosystems grant in a Special Feature: Conservation, Ecology and Artificial Intelligence – Advances and Symbiotic Solutions!
Lydia gives an oral presentation at the International Biogeography Society meeting in Aarhus, Denmark on Annie’s manuscript in press at Ecology Letters and a poster on Kai’s optimal transport methods in Methods in Ecology and Evolution!
December 2025: Lab lunch at the Jolly Pumpkin!
September 2025: Lydia's abstract accepted for an oral presentation at The International Biogeography Society meeting in Denmark, January 2026!
August 2025: Fall semester launches in full force! Lydia is teaching IBIO 355: Ecology this semester and is teaching in the EEB graduate program quantitative core course series.
Manuscript published at Methods in Ecology and Evolution from Lydia's NSF Macrosystems Biology grant with Cesar Uribe! Kai Hung led the paper with major contributions from Annie Finneran. The paper is entitled 'Quantifying functionally equivalent species and ecological network dissimilarity with optimal transport distances".
Lydia presents a talk with Chia and Annie as coauthors entitled "Macroecological signatures of historical extinctions on contemporary mammal food webs" at ESA in Baltimore!
July 2025: Huge congratulations to Matt as he departs the lab to start his NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship!
June 2025: Corrina presents a poster and Irina gives a talk at the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation meeting in Mexico!
Miguel presents a poster at the American Society of Mammalogists meeting at Purdue!
Dr. Miguel Lurgi, Associate Professor of Bioscience at Swansea University in Wales, visits the lab for two weeks!
Annie Finneran conducts her field season at Udzungwa Mountains National Park, a TEAM site in Tanzania!
May 2025: Lydia's abstract accepted for ESA!
April 2025: Lydia gives an invited seminar for the International Biogeography Society Funk Lecture series!
Corrina and Miguel awarded travel grants from EEB to present posters at the Association for Tropical Ecology and Conservation (ATBC) conference and American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) conference this summer!
Irina selected to participate in highly competitive workshop on trait evolution!
Lydia gives a seminar for EEB at MSU!
March 2025: Lydia participates in the sMacrobehaviour synthesis working group focused on disentangling the drivers of geographic variation in vertebrate behavior at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig (iDiv)!
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February 2025: BIG paper led by former lab visiting scholar Ilaria Greco published in Plos Biology!! It's entitled "Landscape-level human disturbance results in loss and contraction of mammalian populations in tropical forests". Previous PhD students in the lab - Chia and Dan - made critical contributions to the paper by providing covariate data. Lydia worked super hard to support the conceptualization, development, writing, and revision of the paper because Ilaria's work is so important for conservation. Check out the press release from Plos Biology and the press release from MSU. |
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January 2025: Lydia visits the University of Toronto to give an invited seminar for the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.
Welcome to the lab, Irina! We are so thrilled you are here!
December 2024: Huge congratulations to Ilaria Greco on her gargantuan effort resulting in acceptance of her paper to Plos Biology!! The paper is entitled "Landscape-level human disturbance results in loss and contraction of mammal populations in tropical forests". Ilaria was a visiting scholar in our lab in 2022. Both Chia and Dan contributed to the large collaboration Ilaria spearheaded.
November 2024: Lydia gives an invited lightning talk for the AI & the Environment event hosted by MSU's Office of Research and Innovation. The talk was entitled "AI for Biodiversity: Past, Present, and Future".
October 2024: New paper led by Richard Bischof published in Proceedings B from our Empty Forests and Extinction Filters project. The paper is entitled "The moon's influence on the activity of tropical forest mammals" and news coverage is here!
September 2024: Macrobehavior working group selected for funding by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)! Katie Marske and Sally Keith led the proposal and Lydia is thrilled to participate in it!
Lab dinner at Lydia's house!
August 2024: Fall semester starts and we kick off joint lab meetings with Phoebe Zarnetske's SPaCE Lab!
July 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Chia Hsieh on the successful defense of her PhD thesis entitled "Evolutionary history, extinction, and environmental variability shape the tropical and subtropical diversity disparity of terrestrial mammals"!
New paper led by John Rowan out in Nature Ecology & Evolution entitled "Long-term biotic homogenization in the East African Rift System over the last 6 million years of hominin evolution" funded by the NSF Biological Anthropology grant to Jason Kamilar and Kaye Reed that Lydia contributed to.
The lab gets started at Michigan State University with new members Miguel Silva and Matthew Wuensch! We are so glad to finally be here!
June 2024: Welcome to the lab, Matthew Wuensch and Irina Birskis-Barros! We are so thrilled that each of you are joining the group as postdocs at MSU this year! Matt starts in July and Irina will start in January 2025.
Welcome to the lab, Irina! We are so thrilled you are here!
December 2024: Huge congratulations to Ilaria Greco on her gargantuan effort resulting in acceptance of her paper to Plos Biology!! The paper is entitled "Landscape-level human disturbance results in loss and contraction of mammal populations in tropical forests". Ilaria was a visiting scholar in our lab in 2022. Both Chia and Dan contributed to the large collaboration Ilaria spearheaded.
November 2024: Lydia gives an invited lightning talk for the AI & the Environment event hosted by MSU's Office of Research and Innovation. The talk was entitled "AI for Biodiversity: Past, Present, and Future".
October 2024: New paper led by Richard Bischof published in Proceedings B from our Empty Forests and Extinction Filters project. The paper is entitled "The moon's influence on the activity of tropical forest mammals" and news coverage is here!
September 2024: Macrobehavior working group selected for funding by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)! Katie Marske and Sally Keith led the proposal and Lydia is thrilled to participate in it!
Lab dinner at Lydia's house!
August 2024: Fall semester starts and we kick off joint lab meetings with Phoebe Zarnetske's SPaCE Lab!
July 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Chia Hsieh on the successful defense of her PhD thesis entitled "Evolutionary history, extinction, and environmental variability shape the tropical and subtropical diversity disparity of terrestrial mammals"!
New paper led by John Rowan out in Nature Ecology & Evolution entitled "Long-term biotic homogenization in the East African Rift System over the last 6 million years of hominin evolution" funded by the NSF Biological Anthropology grant to Jason Kamilar and Kaye Reed that Lydia contributed to.
The lab gets started at Michigan State University with new members Miguel Silva and Matthew Wuensch! We are so glad to finally be here!
June 2024: Welcome to the lab, Matthew Wuensch and Irina Birskis-Barros! We are so thrilled that each of you are joining the group as postdocs at MSU this year! Matt starts in July and Irina will start in January 2025.
Check out previous lab news in our News Archives
