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Welcome to the Suding Lab

We are interested in the abundance and diversity of plant species in nature. We study how species interactions, soil feedbacks, and disturbance may help determine these patterns. We use this understanding to address problems of invasive species, environmental change and habitat restoration. Learn more…

Who we are...

We are a research group in community ecology at UC Berkeley directed by Katharine Suding. We are in the Ecosystem Science Division of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. We were previously at UC Irvine, and several graduate students in the group remain in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program there.

We are currently recruiting graduate students and postdocs to join our group. Please contact us for more information.

More information about us...

News in the lab:

In collaboration with Stephen Swallow (economist, URI) and several conservation groups in Orange County (NROC, IRC, TNC) we are initiating a project "Sustainable solutions to cross thresholds and build ecological resilience" funded by the USDA-NIFA Invasive Species Program.

Kudos!! Rebecca Aicher and Leah Goldstein received UCI Graduate Dean Dissertation Fellowships. Marko Spasojevic and Heather McGray received NSF Dissertation Improvement Grants.

In collaboration with Bob Sinsabaugh (UMN) and Andrea Porras-Alfaro (WIU) we are initiating a project "Dynamics of plant-soil feedbacks in changing environments" funded by NSF. We will address whether some of the plant diversity decline often associated with N fertilization could be due to belowground microbial interactions.

A new paper with Richard Hobbs in TREE "Threshold models in restoration and conservation: a developing framework" examines the application of threshold concepts in human-impacted and managed systems.