Research Ideas for Students
Dr. Gregg Hartvigsen
I believe students should develop their own research projects but recognize
that students may be timid about diving into an entirely new research area. Students have many opportunities to develop and
conduct independent research both within my broad research program and in
closely allied research areas. Students generally work on theoretical
approaches to understanding and predicting the dynamics of ecological systems.
Opportunities are divided into two phases. Phase I projects are appropriate
for students new to the program. Phase II projects assume the student has some
experience with programming. Some projects can be worked on by students in
either Phase I or Phase II.
Phase I Research Projects
- Effect of predator (3rd trophic level) in food web
model.
- Effect of increasing window sizes (neighborhood size)
on the dynamics of populations in food web model.
- Explore collecting data from literature or web to test
hypotheses in the field of ecology.
- Develop conceptual model for a complex ecological
system and identify the data required to test a hypothesis.
- Learn R or C programming.
- Develop a computer program of a simple population model
(e.g., exponential growth) and analyze its dynamics.
Phase II Research Projects
- Investigate vaccination strategies against influenza in
a realistically structured model of hosts.
- Investigate the evolutionary dynamics of influenza in a
realistically structured model of hosts.
- Investigate the evolution of species over time in a
spatially structure community.
- Investigate the effect of predators on a
spatially-structured model of plants and herbivores.
- Effect of increasing window sizes (neighborhood size)
on the dynamics of populations in food web model.
- Investigate conditions under which a biocontrol agent
can be used to control an invasive weed species.
- Assess the dynamics of logistically (chaotically) growing
population, coupled in a network structure.
- Investigate how cooperation emerges on a small-world
network
- Investigate the dynamics of various ecological systems
structured on a network, including diseases, populations, and other
behaviors of individuals.
In addition, I'm interesting in working with dedicated students to tackle
any of these problems (as time/resources permit):
- Assess the ecological communities in our new Research Reserve. This
could be anything from the natural history of the site to experiments
involving prescribed burning.
- Collect historical information and map data/aerial
photographs of Research
Reserve
- Establish vegetation transects in Research Reserve as
basis for long-term studies of plant community dynamics
- Investigate plant competitive interactions (see Hartvigsen,
2000)
- Vegetation analysis in the Roemer Arboretum
- Analyze vegetation communities of the Genesee Valley
Conservancy holdings (~5000 acres)
- Map and analyze distribution of large trees in Arboretum
- Inventory large trees on Geneseo
campus or work on the Geneseo Big Trees project
- Determine spatial pattern of bird territories in the Roemer Arboretum
- Determine change in fractal dimension of leaves and/or
whole plants over environmental gradients using digital imagery (see Hartvigsen
2000)
- Investigate the fractal shape of plant communities
around Geneseo over time
- Determine the shape of forest canopies using
clinometer, laser rangefinder, and fractal geometry
- Develop and test individual-based, evolutionary
programs (e.g., see Hartvigsen
& Levin, 1997)
- Extend a spatially-explicit model of cooperation (see Hartvigsen,
Worden, & Levin 2000)
- Model pest spread and management.
- Investigate small-world network dynamics (cooperation,
influenza, food-web dynamics)
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