I study the how the evolutionary history of organisms found together in communities affects their interactions with each other and with other organisms. In particular I am interested in how insect herbivores affect and are affected by the 'phylogenetic structure' of plant communities.

Publications:

Dinnage R. (2009) Disturbance alters the phylogenetic composition and structure of plant communities in an old field system. PLoS ONE 4(9): e7071. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007071

Johnson, M.T.J., Dinnage, R., Zhou, A.Y., and Hunter, M.D. (2008) Environmental variation has stronger effects than plant genotype on competition among plant species. Journal of Ecology. 96: 947–955. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01410.x

Abrams, P.A., Rueffler, C., and Dinnage, R. (2008) Competition-­similarity relationships and the nonlinearity of competitive effects in consumer­-resource systems. American Naturalist. 172(4): 463-­474. doi: 10.1086/590963