The Fristoe Macroecology lab at the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras is interested in understanding how environmental constraints and evolutionary forces interact to shape species distributions on a dynamic Earth. Scaling up to large collections of species at continental-global scales, we aim to reveal how species persist and coexist across diverse and changing environments to structure ecological communities and generate global patterns of biodiversity. Our research integrates tools and perspectives from a wide range of disciplines including macroecology, biogeography, invasion biology, evolutionary ecology, community ecology, physiology, anthropology, and metabolic ecology.
With the distribution of life in the Anthropocene inextricably linked to human activities, our synthetic, big data approach is particularly suited to documenting and understanding the consequences of human impacts that are unfolding across scales of biological organization.
If you are interested in learning more, please visit the research page.
My fascination with the natural world also informs my other life as an artist. To see some examples of my work check out the card game Birds of a Feather.
Check out some press coverage on bird brains in harsh climates in Discover Magazine, on urban biodiversity in the New York Times, and on the macroecology of human sustainability in Business Insider, the Scientific American Blog, Earth Times, and Nautilus.
