Dr. Rachel Collins

Degrees

• B.S., Wildlife and Fisheries Managment, North Carolina State University
• M.S., Department of Zoology, Miami University
• Ph.D., Program in Ecology and Evolution in the Biology Department, University of Pittsburgh

Research & Teaching Interests

• As a community ecologist, I am interested in how organisms in forests interact with each other and with the environment to affect ecosystem function. That includes:
• Species diversity
• Productivity
• Invasibility
• Other dynamics
• I am especially interested in species diversity. Many factors contribute to the number of species in an area and the number of species in an area impact ecosystem functions. You may have noticed that there seems to be some circularity in my description. Although in academic writing one might try to avoid circular arguments, understanding this circular nature of species diversity is key to understanding natural systems. And it is this interplay of the causes and consequences of species diversity that I am most interested in exploring in my research lab and classes.