Research

In the Hawkes lab, we address broad questions in plant, microbial, and ecosystem ecology that are important for understanding fundamental community and ecosystem dynamics. We are also interested in how communities and ecosystems are affected by biological invasions, altered climate, and other environmental changes. We use a variety of genes to ecosystems approaches for experiments in the field, greenhouse, and lab. Examples of ongoing research projects in the lab include:

• Fungal responses to timing of rainfall in California grasslands
• The role of fungi in community and ecosystem responses to drought in central Texas
• Local specialization of fungi to precipitation along a central Texas precipitation gradient
• Ecophysiological and genomic responses of switchgrass to future climate change
• Legacy effects of exotic plants and their importance in landscape restoration
• Links between aboveground and belowground community structure

Selected Publications

• Eviner VE and CV Hawkes. 2008. Embracing variability in the application of plant-soil interactions to the restoration of communities and ecosystems. Restoration Ecology 16: 713-729.


• Fox HE, P Karieva, B Silliman, J Hitt, D Lytle, BS Halpern, CV Hawkes, J Lawler, M Neel, JD Olden, M Schlaepfer, K Smith, and H Tallis. 2009. Why do we fly? Ecologists’ sins of emission. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 294-295.


• Hausmann T, and CV Hawkes. 2009. Plant neighborhood control of arbuscular mycorrhizal communities. New Phytologist 183: 1188-1200.


• Hawkes CV, AE Douglas, and AH Fitter. 2009. Origin, local experience, and the relative impact of biotic interactions on invasion success. Biological Invasions DOI: 10.1007/s10530-009-9435-2 (in press).


• Hawkes CV, IP Hartley, P Ineson, AH Fitter. 2008. Soil temperature affects carbon allocation within arbuscular mycorrhizal networks and carbon transport from plant to fungus. Global Change Biology 14:1181-1190.


• Hawkes CV. 2007. Are invaders moving targets? The generality and persistence of advantages in size, reproduction, and enemy release in invasive species with time since introduction. The American Naturalist 170: 832-843.


• Hawkes CV, Belnap J, D’Antonio C, Firestone MK. 2006. Arbuscular mycorrhizal assemblages in native plant roots change in the presence of exotic grasses. Plant and Soil 281: 369-380.


• Hawkes CV, IF Wren, DH Herman, and MK Firestone. 2005. Plant invasion alters nitrogen cycling by modifying the soil nitrifying community. Ecology Letters 8: 976-985.


• Hawkes CV. 2004. Effects of biological soil crusts on seed germination of four endangered herbs in a xeric Florida shrubland during drought. Plant Ecology 170: 121-134.


• Belnap J, CV Hawkes, and MK Firestone. 2003. Boundaries in miniature: two examples from soil. Bioscience 53: 739-749.


• Hawkes CV. 2003. Nitrogen cycling mediated by biological soil crusts and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Ecology 84: 1553-1562.


• Hawkes CV and VR Flechtner. 2002. Biological soil crusts in a xeric Florida shrubland: composition, abundance, and spatial heterogeneity of crusts with different disturbance histories. Microbial Ecology 43: 1-12.


• Hawkes CV and JJ Sullivan. 2001. The impact of herbivory on plants in different resource conditions: a meta-analysis. Ecology 82: 2045-2058.

Courses

Undergraduate Courses:

• BIO364 Microbial Ecology (Every Spring)
• NSC110 Dean’s Scholars Seminar: Science, Culture, & Communication (Fall 2006)

Graduate Seminars:

• BIO384K Global Change Ecology (Fall 2006)
• BIO384K Plant-microbe Interactions and Ecosystem Processes (Fall 2005, Fall 2008)
• BIO384K Invasion Ecology (Fall 2009)