Welcome to Spatial Ecology Lab

We are recruiting PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in spatial ecology! Please contact me if you are interested. See more info here.

We are a research group in spatial ecology in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California Davis. Our aim is to better understand mechanisms and consequences of ecosystem spatial pattern formations. We investigate a variety of types of ecosystems and landscapes, in particular landscapes whose morphology and dynamics are significantly affected by organisms. To this end, we develop mathematical and statistical models, combined with empirical data from remote sensing and from the field (see Research).

We are grateful for funding from UC Davis, Office of Polar Programs (OPP) and Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) at National Science Foundation, and the Center for Space and Earth Science (CSES) at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

We are looking for passionate new PhD students, Postdocs, and Master students to join the team (more info) !

News

June 10, 2024

Our paper on coupled-evolution of landscapes and plants has been published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution!

Feb 1, 2024

Xiaoli and Dawn Sumner received the NSF grant to study the effects of environmental change on microbial self-organized patterns in Antarctic Lakes.

Feb 1, 2024

Dan’s first dissertation chapter on spatial self-organization at the community level is published in Ecosystems!

Jan 10, 2024

Xiaoli is promoted to associated professor with tenure!

Dec 20, 2023

Our new paper, on climate impacts on global values of natural capital, is published in Nature.

Jul 10, 2023

Xiaoli received the NSF grant to study the spatial self-organization of vegetation and biological soil crust community in drylands!

Mar 20, 2022

Junna graduated from Graduate Group in Ecology and is moving to Yale as a postdoc!

... see all News