Freestone Lab
Ecology and Conservation of Species Diversity
Research in the Freestone laboratory bridges classic community ecology with macroecology. We focus on understanding feedbacks among processes that operate at the community scale and across regional to continental scales. Using experimental approaches in benthic marine systems, we explore (1) the impact of species interactions on community assembly and ecosystem function, particularly resistance to invasion by non-native species, and (2) how these processes structure patterns of species diversity in space and time. One of our principal interests lies in understanding how these dynamics change across the primary global biogeographic gradient, latitude. Therefore, our field studies and collaborative projects span the subarctic to the tropics. We also conduct collaborative research on the conservation and ecology of tropical forests in the Madagascar Biodiversity Hotspot.
Photos: (Left) Amy Freestone. (Right) PhD Students Katherine Papacostas, Dusty Long, and Elizabeth Rielly.
Lab News
We are recruiting 2013 summer interns! Click HERE for more information.
An upcoming paper of Amy's in press at Ecology got highlighted in Nature. Check it out!
The Freestone Lab developed and ran field activities at Island Beach State Park, one of our research sites, for the Women's Engineering Exploration high school summer camp, coordinated by the College of Engineering at Temple. We also developed and ran field activities at Delaware Bay for the Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp for middle school students in the Philadelphia area, coordinated by the College of Science and Technology at Temple (see Lab Photos under People for some field shots!).
Katherine Papacostas received a Sounds Conservancy Grant to support her research in Long Island Sound!
Katherine's and Dusty's recent Smithsonian Fellowships are highlighted on Temple's Graduate School News website. Take a look!
Congratulations to Dusty Long who was just awarded a Smithsonian Tropical Research Fellowship to conduct field research in Panama this fall!
We are recruiting 2012 summer interns! Click HERE for more information.
Congratulations to Katherine Papacostas for passing her preliminary exam and advancing to candidacy!
Katherine Papacostas and Elizabeth Rielly were both selected as NSF GK-12 Fellows for the 2011-2012 academic year!
Congratulations to Mike McQuillan on graduating with Distinction in Biology!
Congratulations to Katherine Papacostas who received a Link Foundation / Smithsonian Graduate Fellowship to work at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Florida this summer!
Katherine Papacostas received her second Sigma Xi grant to support her upcoming field season in Florida!
We are all thrilled for Miguel Vaca who will be an NSF REU intern at University of Hawaii this summer!
Miguel Vaca will be presenting his collaborative research with Katherine Papacostas at an undergraduate research poster session on April 30th in the Bio-Life building at Temple University.
We are very happy to welcome Elizabeth Rielly into our lab this year! And now she is already launching into her first field season!
Our lab welcomes Dusty Long as a visiting graduate student for spring and summer 2011. Dusty is finishing his Masters degree in Biological Oceanography with the Baco-Taylor lab at Florida State University, before formally joining our lab in the fall as a PhD student. Welcome Dusty!