Madison Pfau

Laboratory Technician 

Email | madisonpfau@berkeley.edu
Research area | Invasion biology / Microbial ecology / Community dynamics / Food web ecology

Research Interests

I am broadly interested in the drivers of community structure and food-web dynamics in response to disturbance, such as introduced species. I aim to understand how species-species interactions at the individual level can lead to community-wide patterns across disturbance and elevation gradients. Currently, I am curious about how the microbiome may vary based on native versus invasive species to determine the relative relationship between internal composition and specialization across biogeographical regions.

Before joining the EVOLAB, I worked in the Blumstein Lab in the UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. There I worked to understand relationships between animal behavior and microbial composition, which drives my interests in the mechanistic drivers of fitness.

Current Projects:

1. Reference Barcode Library of Pacific Island Arthropods (Technician/Assistant)
2. The Impact of an Invasive Ecosystem Engineer on Food Web Dynamics and Community Composition (Technician)
3. Variation in Spider Microbiomes in Native and Invasive Species Across Spatial Scales (Lead, Laboratory Technician)
4. Science Communication for EDIAS project (Co-lead/Assistant)