Rob Lewis research interests focuses on improving our understanding of spatial and temporal patterns of plant communities at the macro-scale. His past research has covered community and functional assembly, conservation biology, climate and land-use change, ecological theory and ecoinformatics. The main question of his HISTFUNC work is to develop hybrid mechanistic models capable of accurately forecasting species distribution range shifts, through which impacts on vegetation related ecosystem functions can be measured.
Alejandro (Alejo) Ordonez research interests focuses on past and future global change phenomena (climate change - species invasions) and their impact on species ranges, community assembly and functional diversity. The main question of his HISTFUNC work is measuring the influence of past climatic effects on macro-scale functional diversity geographic patterns within Europe and across the Americas.
Shuqing's research interests mainly involve, by means of quantitative methods, interpreting diversity patterns of mammals at large scales and predicting their responses to habitat shifts due to climatic or anthropogenic effects. His current project focuses on whether and the extent to which abiotic and biotic factors have historically shaped the present geographical distributions of large mammals and what kind of roles these factors have been in such mammal community structuring.
Timo’s research explores ecological and biogeographic factors (e.g. species pools) that shape plant diversity patterns, community assembly and ecosystem dynamics, and their responses to global change drivers. His research involves a combination of experimentation, field observations and the integration of diverse big datasets. In HISTFUNC, Timo examines the influence of Quaternary climate instability on contemporary tree species pools and forest net primary production at a global scale.
