Current Research: James Reichman

My main area of research involves analyses of the impact of herbivores on plants, particularly as mediated through the spatial pattern of animal disturbances. Herbivores have direct effects on plants by consuming them, and I and my colleagues and students have investigated the relative impacts of consuming leaves and roots, especially by subterranean pocket gophers. The destruction of relatively small amounts of root material has an impact equal to the consumption of much larger portions of the above ground plant material such that root herbivores have a disproportionate impact on plant communities.

Animals also have indirect effects on plants through the physical alteration of the soil (e.g., animal trails, ant mounds). I have studied the impact of pocket gopher tunnels, which are invisible and can underlie a large portion of the landscape, and the mounds these rodents build by dumping the tailings of their diggings on the soil surface (Gabet, Reichman, Seabloom. 2003 The effects of bioturbation on soil processes and sediment transport. Ann. Rev. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 31:249-273). Burrows tend to be highly uniform in their distribution, while mounds tend to be highly patchy and thus both disturbances generate spatially explicit patterns of influence on the surrounding plant community.

Recently, we have begun a number of experiments at Sedgwick Reserve on the role herbivores play on the interaction between native and invasive plant species. The extent and spatial pattern of disturbance appears to influence plant community structure. In addition, we're initiating experiments to determine whether apparent competition between native and invasive species is actually mediated through an abnormal increase in native herbivores generated by the abundant invasive plant species, which in turn affect native plant species. Additional research, led by Eric Seabloom, (Seabloom, Harpole, Reichman, Tilman. 2003. Invasion, competitive dominance, and resource use by exotic and native California grassland species. PNAS 100:13384-13389) has revealed that native plant species actually out-compete invasive species, but are so profoundly seed-limited that they cannot recover their original density.

I am also Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), a research center of UCSB. The Center is designed to allow visiting scientists (approximately 600 per year) to use existing data to address important ecological questions. In addition, NCEAS supports 6 sabbatical visitors and 18 postdoctoral associates each year. The Center is also deeply involved in research on generic access to ecological data (http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics).

James Reichman | Research | Publications | Curriculum Vitae

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