Don DeAngelis, Ph.D. (Former Employee)

Invasive plant species alter community dynamics and ecosystem properties, potentially leading to regime shifts. Here, the invasion of a non-native tree species into a stand of native tree species is simulated using an agent-based model. The model describes an invasive tree with fast growth and high seed production that produces litter with a suppressive effect on native seedlings, based...

Ecology is usually very good in making descriptive explanations of what is observed, but is often unable to make predictions of the response of ecosystems to change. This has implications in a human-dominated world where a suite of anthropogenic stresses are threatening the resilience and functioning of ecosystems that sustain mankind through a range of critical regulating and supporting...

The quasispecies concept had two independent origins. One source was the theoretical ideas of Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster in the 1970s. Studying the self-organization and evolution of primitive RNA molecules, they defined quasispecies as a distribution of mutant viral genomes generated by the mutation-selection process. In particular, the quasispecies nucleotide distribution...

Water quality improvement to avoid excessive phytoplankton blooms often requires eutrophication management where both phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) play a role. While empirical eutrophication studies and ecological resource competition theory both provide insight into phytoplankton abundance in response to nutrient loading, they are not seamlessly linked in the current state of...

Tactile-feeding wading birds, such as wood storks and white ibises, require high densities of prey such as small fishes and crayfish to support themselves and their offspring during the breeding season. Prey availability in wetlands is often determined by seasonal hydrologic pulsing, such as in the subtropical Everglades, where spatial distributions of prey can vary through time...

Native across the Old World tropics from Africa to Southeast Asia and Australia, Lygodium microphyllum (Cav.) R. Br. (Old World Climbing Fern) is one of the most invasive plant species threatening South Florida ecosystems (Rodgers et al. 2014). This invasive fern was first collected as a naturalized plant in South Florida in the late 1960s (Beckner 1968). Subsequent populations were...