Email: eric.lee@yale.edu
Office: Greeley Laboratory, Room 125
Lab Phone: (203) 432-5321
Fax: (203) 432-3929

EDUCATION

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My broad interests are prediction in ecology and understanding how ecology can be presented to effectively change environmental policy. Focusing on the former, I look at time series analysis, a well-developed subdiscipline within ecology. The use of models to predict temporal changes in population abundance is one of the acid tests for ecologists' understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the relationship between species and their environment. While time series analysis has undergone remarkable progress in the last decade, critical obstacles remain. One of the most fundamental is the data requirement. Time series analysis used in ecology often follows a single population over a long time period. While predictions may be good for this population, predictions may be poor for a nearby population of the same species, but under different environmental conditions. My research introduces statistical methods new to ecology where data is simultaneously collected over a range of environmental conditions in a shorter period of time. While this approach may be more labor-intensive, it has the potential to make better predictions under more conditions in a timely manner. This last point is often crucial, yet lacking, when science is used to shape policy.

To test the methods and models, I will make predictions of wood frog (Rana sylvatica) abundance in a pond after one generation, or two years. My study site is Yale-Myers forest in northeastern Connecticut, where I work at 59 vernal ponds that span a range of environmental conditions such as different drying times, canopy cover, and predator composition. Wood frog abundance and other types of data will be collected over two years, after which, I will predict their abundances.

Wood frog (Rana sylvatica) metamorph.

Wood frog eggmasses and breeding pair.