Carla D'Antonio

University of California, Berkeley
Assistant Professor
Carla D'Antonio Image

Carla D'Antonio is currently the Professor and Schuyler Chair of Environmental Studies at UCSB. Dr. D'Antonio's research focus has been to understand processes that control invasions by non-indigenous species into ecological communities and how and when the addition of some individual species affects ecosystem structure and functioning. She seek a mechanistic understanding of ecological patterns and process and although she works primarily at the community and ecosystem levels, she also examines individual plant and population processes. She believes that such an integrated approach is the best way to answer questions about the importance of individual species and how communities and ecosystems will change with increasing human population pressure, increasing movement of plant species, nitrogen deposition and climatic fluctuations. Research in her laboratory that has focused on understanding both controls over vegetation change including species invasions, and the impact of individual species on 'native' ecosystems. While the studies of species invasions has important conservation implications, she believes strongly that non-native invasive species offer an important opportunity to probe both factors structuring plant communities and sources of variation in species effects on ecosystem processes.