Cousens Invasive Plant Population Biology Lab

Invasive species can have a wide variety of impacts on native plant and animal communities, geomorphology, ecosystem function, agricultural production, human health and our aesthetic appreciation of landscapes.  We study the factors regulating the abundance of the species, so that we can predict their spatial and temporal dynamics and hence their impacts.  We are also interested in the implications of population dynamics for genetic variation and evolution.  Depending on the question, our research can take us into natural ecosystems or into farmer's fields (where these species are regarded as "weeds"), working with the people who manage them, and with people from other disciplines, such as zoologists, geomorphologists and social scientists. 

 

A particular current focus of the Lab is coastal invasive plants.  The narrow terrestrial coastal fringe  is of great ecological significance, being a habitat for plant and animal species found nowhere else and providing nesting sites for millions of sea birds.  It is highly disturbed, by waves, wind and human activity. Although we study a range of species, our main study system involves two exotic Sea-rockets (Cakile sp.), their breeding systems and their pollinators.  These species are a plant analogue of the Neanderthal-Homo sapiens story (at least, that is how we see it).  One (earlier) plant invader, an in-breeder, is being overwhelmed by a later arriving self-incompatible congener.  Their dynamics also depends on introduced and native insects, as well as a disease.