Jonathan Lefcheck
Master's Student
Email: [[jslefche]]Phone: (804) 684-7150, 7148
Office: Andrews Hall 124
Department: Biological Sciences
Advisor: J. Emmett Duffy
Education
B.A., Biology. 2009. Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Research Interests
I am broadly interested in the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and the provisioning of ecosystem services. Is biodiversity important? What exactly are the contributions of biodiversity to ecological systems, and can they be generalized? In a changing world, what are the consequences of biodiversity loss?
My current research investigates trait-based functional diversity. A trait is any measurable character (morphological, behavioral, etc.) that affects how an individual performs in its environment. A trait-based approach to characterizing diversity allows for a more intuitive link between diversity and ecosystem processes because it asks what species do as opposed to who they are. Specifically, I'm interested in patterns of functional diversity in nature, how functional diversity compares to other metrics of diversity (taxonomic, phylogenetic, etc.) in describing ecological communities, and how ecosystems respond to losses in functional, as opposed to species, diversity.
