Sep 22 2026

E&E Seminar: “Quantitative methods to understand environmental phenomena: flash drought and the natural enemies hypotheses” by Tiffany Christian (UIC)

September 22, 2026

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Location

SELE 4289

Calendar

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Please join us 9.22.26 at 12:30pm in SELE 4289 for an E&E Seminar featuring "Quantitative methods to understand environmental phenomena: flash drought and the natural enemies hypotheses" by Dr. Tiffany Christian (UIC).  Dr. Christian is a post-doc in Nunez-Mir MEC Lab.

Host: Gabby Nunez-Mir

Abstract: Dr. Christian will be presenting work from two separate projects. First, she will present a spatiotemporal clustering method that she helped develop alongside her collaborators at Argonne National Laboratory. Then she will discuss work done at UIC in the Nunez-Mir Macroscale Ecology Lab, which assessed evidence for the natural enemies hypothesis in forests.

Project 1: I present a spatiotemporal clustering algorithm that can extract events based on their intensity and spatiotemporal structures.  I will discuss the development of the algorithm, the selection, tuning, and meaning of the parameters within each step. Finally, I will present the results of applying the algorithm to a spatiotemporal drought index, standardized vapor pressure deficit drought index (SVDI), over the continental United States (US) from 1980–2021. These spatiotemporal clusters capture historical drought events over the continental United States and their spatiotemporal extents.
Project 2: In forest ecosystems, tree biodiversity may support higher abundances and richness of insectivorous predators like birds, which could increase forest resistance to invasive insect pests.  we used locally estimated structural equation models to assess the direct and indirect relationships among forest tree species richness and structural diversity, bird abundance, and invasive insect richness across the eastern United States. Across all forest types, we found an inverse relationship between insectivorous bird abundance and invasive insect richness in counties. Of the structural diversity measures, greater variance in tree crown position in the canopy was associated with greater bird abundance. These results suggest that forested areas with more structural diversity may exhibit a stronger top-down predator suppression effect from insectivorous birds.

Contact

Emily Beaufort
ebeauf2@uic.edu

Date posted

Apr 9, 2026

Date updated

Sep 1, 2026