The global distribution of plant terpenes and terpenoids

Ubiquitous and the most diverse set of chemical compounds in plants, terpenes and terpenoids, were considered metabolic ‘waste,’ byproducts from the primary processes plants evolved to grow and reproduce. After decades of inscrutability, the proliferation of molecular techniques, like gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry, unveiled a seemingly unending assortment of these compounds and helped identify their synthesis, chemical properties, and functions. Today, we now know terpenoids make forests more flammable, alarm plants of stress, and carry medicinal benefits for humans.

Despite these advances, we know very little about the macroecology and evolution of terpenes and terpenoids. Most studies to date focus on a few compounds of economic or ecological importance, yet authors often publish an entire profile of all compounds identified in the study. These chemical profiles have remained inaccessible due to data engineering limitations. Rather than treat each study in isolation, we can reconstruct existing knowledge into a comprehensive and standardized database. From there, we can identify hotspots of terpene diversity across the plant kingdom, compare diversity in tissue from different organs like fruits and leaves, and evaluate the effects of agricultural domestication.






Phylogeny of plant species represented in a subset of the database.

Quantifying the temporal ecology of plant-antagonist interactions

For decades, ecologists in Western science have studied how species and their communities change across time. Time as a unit of measurement and as an axis of understanding the world helps us model species distributions, rates of evolution, phenology and ontogeny, and resource fluctuations. However, we’re still missing examples of modeling impact throughout time that: (a) evaluate impact by modeling shorter time series and (b) manipulate the nature, timing, and frequency of species interactions as priority effects in community ecology. Working with tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) and its herbivores in common garden and field experiments in southwestern Michigan at Kellogg Biological Station, I ask the following questions:

1. How do single and multiple herbivory events alter host plants and subsequent community ecology?

2. How can we leverage statistical models to evaluate the impact of these interaction events?






How do we leverage field biologists’ quantitative skills for effective public communication?

While effective public communication advances conservation and educational goals within and outside the scientific community, we have not formally integrated all communication tools available to us. In collaboration the Integrative Ecology Lab at Temple University, I develop and share data communication tools to leverage the quantitative skills that field biologists like ecologists learn in their professional training. We have designed a framework and coding workflow using the R statistical language and its associated document-generating language, R Markdown, to generate unique, informative, and customizable reports for public stakeholders. These reports, which communicate research data potentially taken over dozens of locations, can be individualized in our workflow so that each stakeholder receives system-specific information. Our work is currently in press at Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. If you’d like to see our the package repository and tutorial in the meantime, check out the c4bi (Coding for broader impact) website here.