Here is more information about my research:

My research interests are in dispersal ecology and the ecological consequences of forest fragmentation.  I am particularly interested in determining what mechanisms are responsible for the changes in plant and animal communities that occur across fragmentation gradients and how these changes might lead to altered plant-animal interactions.  My approach to answering these questions is to link landscape scale patterns with site-specific experimental manipulations that test mechanisms (e.g., testing the link between plant diversity declines and dispersal through seed addition experiments).  The integrative nature of this research is well suited for training master’s students with diverse backgrounds and interests. I am also interested in quantifying long distance seed dispersal, which I have shown can be empirically studied in fragmented landscapes (McEuen and Curran 2004).  Solving Reid’s paradox, which states that historic shifts in plant distributions are not possible given known dispersal distances, is imperative in a time of global climate change.  The solution to Reid’s paradox likely lies in quantifying the tail of the seed dispersal curve.  This quantification has largely been ignored in part because it is so labor-intensive.  Genetic methods hold great promise for overcoming the current deficit of empirical information on long distance dispersal as does sampling of seed rain in fragmented landscapes where distances between seed sources are large.  Through collaboration with students and molecular biology colleagues here at UIS,  I hope to strengthen our understanding of long distance dispersal and it's ecological consequences.

McEuen, A. and L. Curran. 2004. Seed dispersal and recruitment limitation across spatial scales in temperate forest fragments. Ecology 85(2): 507-518.