Our work in plant communities and nearshore coastal habitats has generated an interest in how landscape heterogeneity affects wind and currents. We are especially interested in how altered flow regimes of air or water affect passively-dispersed organisms such as seeds and larvae.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Washington University's Center for Programs, and Washington University's I-CARES initiative, and in collaboration with Dirk Baker, Gil Bohrer, Jay Turner, Ran Nathan, Gaby Katul, and The Corridor Research Group, we are using dispersal model for wind-dispersed plants that incorporates landscape heterogeneity. We are empirically evaluating this model in the field using our experimental corridor system (see Corridors and Plant Diversity).