I am a theoretical ecologist and evolutionary biologist, with a background in fundamental physics. I have broad interests in ecological theories, from phenomenological competition models to metacommunities and niche theory.
I just started a “Maître de Conférence” (Assistant Professor) position at Université Lyon 1, France, in the LBBE.
I was previously a post-doc at Michigan State University working with Christopher Klausmeier and Elena Litchman, where I developed 1) mechanistic trait-based approaches to understand what controls species abundances in communities, from rarity to commonness, and 2) metabolically structured population models to study the emergence and stability of functionally-diverse microbial communities.
During my PhD, I developed trait- and niche-based ecosystem models to investigate how interactions between plants and their biotic and abiotic environments determine plant adaptive strategies, such as resource acquisition, defense against herbivores and nitrogen fixation. I studied the consequences of these adaptations on community structure and ecosystem functioning.
I am also a passionate naturalist, so do not hesitate to check my observations on iNaturalist!
Thomas Koffel 