What factors drive the observed patterns in biological communities? How do these patterns change at different spatial and/or temporal scales? What mechanism(s) explain this variation?  My research investigates the spatial structure of species interaction networks at both local and regional scales and their effects on ecosystem functioning, as well as the historical drivers of the structure of contemporary and ancient ecological networks. Most research in ecological networks relies on static snapshots of species interactions. Yet, communities are dynamic, and species interactions are forged and broken up over the assembly process or following disturbances (dis-assembly). These dis(assembly) dynamics likely have considerable effects on the functioning and stability of ecosystems. I am interested in exploring how and why the structural properties of biological communities change along environmental gradients, as well as the changes in the functioning and stability of complex ‘networks of networks’

Examples: Galiana et al. (Nature Ecology & Evolution 2022); Hackett et al. (Ecology Letters 2019); Lurgi et al. (Theoretical Ecology 2016); Montoya et al. (Nature Communications 2015); Montoya et al. (Global Ecology & Biogeography 2014)