The number of individuals in a population does not stay constant through time, but varies as a result of birth, death, and dispersal. Environmental conditions influence these processes, leading to the idea that populations will be more variable in more variable environments. This remains largely untested, despite its relevance to understanding the stability of populations and communities, as unstable populations may go extinct and unstable communities may promote biological invasions or be prone to sudden changes in community structure.

Dr. Tad Dallas, Assistant Professor in the Department, was awarded a ~$200K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct a project titled "Linking environmental variability and species-environment relationships to understand fluctuating populations". His lab will use long-term sampling data on a diverse set of taxa to explore the role of environment and geographic distance between populations on resulting population variability, linking these observational data to expectations from theoretical models of population dynamics. Congrats!