Work in the Orrock Lab centers around three themes: behavior, ecological interactions, and how space mediates ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Our work is particularly focused on questions where these three themes converge. For example, are invasive plants successful because they provide a predator-free refuge from which native consumers eat native plants? Although conservation corridors benefit plants by increasing seed dispersal, are these benefits offset by corridor-mediated changes in the foraging behavior of seed-eating consumers? The work we do is both basic and applied: we combine behavioral and spatial ecology to provide insight into the forces shaping communities and the ecological implications of rapid changes in landscape composition (e.g. by humans or invasive organisms). Research sites include the grasslands of California, oldfields in South Carolina, Missouri oak forests, and the Channel Islands off the California coast.

Current Projects:

• Apparent competition and invasive plants: understanding how changes in rodent behavior and abundance caused by exotic plants might facilitate their invasion.
• Trophic cascades and the evolution of anti-predator behavior in insular systems.
• The comparative role of consumptive and non-consumptive effects: how predators alter prey dynamics without killing prey.
• Evaluating the role of patch shape and connectivity in mediating the effect of consumers on plant communities.

• Personal/Lab Page
  

• Selected Publications

• www.conservationcorridor.org

An experimental exclosure in the grasslands of California to measure consumer impact on plant communities (Photo by Ellen Damschen); a deer mouse leaves a foraging tray on San Miguel Island (Photo by John Orrock).