Levine, Jonathan

Biography

Dr. Jonathan Levine is Professor of Plant Ecology, in the Institute of Integrative Biology within the Department of Environmental System Sciences at ETH Zurich, since 2011. He was born in Toronto, Canada in 1973. He completed his Bachelors of Science degree in Biology at Brown University, Providence, USA in 1995. He received his PhD from the University California, Berkeley in 2001, and then conducted postdoctoral work at the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College, Silwood Park. He was then an Assistant Professor at UCLA (2002-2003) before moving on to UC Santa Barbara (2003-2011), where was promoted to Associate, and then Full Professor.

Research Interest

Jonathan’s dissertation work showed how native species diversity influences the success of biological invasions, helping resolve apparent contradictions between experimental results and observational patterns in nature. He also developed some of the first models describing how the number of biological invasions increases with increasing trade activity, allowing forecasts for future introduction rates. He studied annual plant competition and coexistence with mathematical models during his postdoctoral work with Mark Rees. These models have become a cornerstone of subsequent projects, including several papers showing how plant-soil interactions and intraspecific competition can influence the spread of biological invasions. In collaboration with Peter Adler and Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, he demonstrated the role of climatic fluctuations in favoring coexistence in several plant communities. This team also borrowed Chesson’s coexistence framework to help resolve “niche” and “neutral” controls over species diversity maintenance, laying the groundwork for a paper demonstrating the importance of niches for coexistence in an annual plant community. This framework underlies Jonathan’s subsequent collaborations showing how plant functional traits and macroevolutionary history predict species diversity maintenance and the outcome of biological invasions. For information about Jonathan’s current research, visit the Research link, as well as the webpages of individual group members.