Steven W. Kembel

Research interests

I am biologist interested in understanding the ecology and evolution of biodiversity across the tree of life. I focus on understanding how the taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of communities in different habitats are created and maintained by ecological and evolutionary processes, and the functional implications of diversity. I use methods drawn from community ecology, phylogenetic biology, and bioinformatics to address these questions.

Appointments

• iSEEM postdoctoral fellow, Green lab, Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon
• NSERC postdoctoral fellow, Ackerly lab, Department of Integrative Biology, U.C. Berkeley

Education

• Ph.D., Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, 2007
• M.Sc., Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, 2001
• B.Sc.(Hons.), Botany, University of Manitoba, 1997

Publications

• P. Fine and S.W. Kembel. In press. Phylogenetic community structure and phylogenetic turnover across space and edaphic gradients in western Amazonian tree communities. Ecography.
• P. Fine, R. Garcia, N. Pitman, I. Mesones, and S.W. Kembel. In press. A floristic study of the white-sand forests of Peru. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
• S.W. Kembel, D.D. Ackerly, S.P. Blomberg, W.K. Cornwell, P.D. Cowan, M.R. Helmus, H. Morlon and C.O. Webb. 2010. Picante: R tools for integrating phylogenies and ecology. Bioinformatics 26:1463-1464. (doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btq166)
• V. Klepac-Ceraj, K.P. Lemon, T.R. Martin, M. Allgaier, S.W. Kembel, A.A. Knapp, S. Lory, E.L. Brodie, S.V. Lynch, B.J.M. Bohannan, J.L. Green, B.A. Maurer, and R. Kolter. 2010. Relationship between cystic fibrosis respiratory tract bacterial communities and age, genotype, antibiotics and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Environmental Microbiology 12:1293-1303. (doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2010.02173.x)
• M.W. Cadotte, T.J. Davies, J. Regetz, S.W. Kembel, E. Cleland, and T.H. Oakley. 2010. Phylogenetic diversity metrics for ecological communities: integrating species richness, abundance and evolutionary history. Ecology Letters 13:96-105. (doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01405.x)
• S.W. Kembel. 2009. Disentangling niche and neutral influences on community assembly: assessing the performance of community phylogenetic structure tests. Ecology Letters 12:949-960. (doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01354.x)
• J.L. Sachs, S.W. Kembel, A.H. Lau, and E.L. Simms. 2009. In situ phylogenetic structure and diversity of wild Bradyrhizobium communities. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 75:4727-4735. (doi:10.1128/AEM.00667-09)
• J. Cavender-Bares, K.H. Kozak, P.V.A. Fine, and S.W. Kembel. 2009. The merging of community ecology and phylogenetic biology. Ecology Letters 12:693-715. (doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01314.x)
• E. Lamb, S.W. Kembel, and J.F. Cahill, Jr. 2009. Shoot, but not root, competition reduces community diversity in experimental mesocosms. Journal of Ecology 97:155-163. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01454.x)
• C.O. Webb, D.D. Ackerly, and S.W. Kembel. 2008. Phylocom: software for the analysis of phylogenetic community structure and trait evolution. Bioinformatics 18:2098-2100. (doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btn358)
• S.W. Kembel, H. de Kroon, J.F. Cahill, Jr., and L. Mommer. 2008. Improving the scale and precision of hypotheses to explain root foraging ability. Annals of Botany 101:1295-1301. (doi:10.1093/aob/mcn044)
• S.W. Kembel, I. Waters, and J.M. Shay. 2008. Short-term effects of cut-to-length versus full-tree harvesting on understorey plant communities and understorey-regeneration associations in Manitoba boreal forests. Forest Ecology and Management 255:1848-1858. (doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2007.12.006)
• J.F. Cahill, Jr., S.W. Kembel, E.G. Lamb, and P. Keddy. 2008. Does phylogenetic relatedness influence the strength of competition among vascular plants? Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 10:41-50. (doi:10.1016/j.ppees.2007.10.001)
• S.W. Kembel and M.R.T. Dale. 2006. Within-stand spatial structure and relation of boreal canopy and understory vegetation. Journal of Vegetation Science 17: 783-790. (doi:10.1658/1100-9233(2006)17[783:WSSARO]2.0.CO;2)
• Cousens, R.D., M.R.T. Dale, J. Taylor, R. Law, M. Moerkerk, and S.W. Kembel. Interpretation of causes of pattern in communities where environmental change is rapid and species longevity is short. Journal of Vegetation Science 17:509-524. (doi:10.1658/1100-9233(2006)17[599:COPIPC]2.0.CO;2)
• S.W. Kembel and S.P. Hubbell. 2006. The phylogenetic structure of a neotropical forest tree community. Ecology. 87(Suppl): S86-S99. (doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[86:TPSOAN]2.0.CO;2)
• J.F. Cahill, Jr., S.W. Kembel, and D. Gustafson. 2005. Differential genetic influences on competitive effect and response in Arabidopsis thaliana. Journal of Ecology. 93:958-967. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2005.01013.x)
• S.W. Kembel and J.F. Cahill, Jr.. 2005. Plant phenotypic plasticity belowground: a phylogenetic perspective on root foraging tradeoffs. American Naturalist 166:216-230. (doi:10.1086/431287)
• I. Waters, S.W. Kembel, J.-F. Gingras, and J.M. Shay. 2004. Short-term effects of cut-to-length versus full-tree harvesting on conifer regeneration in jack pine, mixedwood, and black spruce forests in Manitoba. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 34:1938-1945. (doi:10.1139/X04-064)

Software

I participate in the development of several open source software projects.

• Phylocom is software for the analysis of community phylogenetic structure and character evolution. Phylocom includes many useful tools for the manipulation and statistical analysis of phylogenetic trees, ecological communities and functional traits.
• Picante is a package for the R statistical programming language. The picante package aims to provide a comprehensive set of tools for analyzing the phylogenetic and trait diversity of ecological communities in R, along with a set of tools for other comparative analyses and manipulations of phenotypic and phylogenetic data.
• Nix is software for taxonomic informatics. Nix allows you to easily find synonyms and taxonomic information for plant species, based on data in the ITIS database.
• Phylobase is an R package that seeks to provide a set of object-oriented classes and methods for representing and manipulating phylogenetic trees and data in R. Phylobase had its beginnings at the NESCent Hackathon on Comparative Methods in R that I helped organize in 2007.