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Tatyana A Rand

Research Ecologist

 

Tatyana Rand PhotoTatyana Rand

 

Research Ecologist

 

tatyana.rand@ars.usda.gov

www.ars.usda.gov/pa/nparl/trand

 

Phone: 406.433.9439
Fax: 406.433.5038 
  
 
EducationCurrent Research • Research Experience • Publications • Grants and Fellowships •
   
 

 

 

Additional Pages:  Research Projects,*Publications *   

*Taken from the Agricultural Research Information System (ARIS) database.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDUCATION

 

B.A. Biology 

 

Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA

Ph.D. Ecology

 

Brown University, Providence, RI

 

CURRENT RESEARCH

 

I am a community ecologist with a broad interest in understanding the factors driving spatial variation in the importance of trophic interactions and its implications for conservation and agriculture. My current focus is on understanding how large-scale factors, such as changes in landscape structure and habitat configuration, interact with local scale biotic and abiotic variables to mediate the intensity and outcome of interaction based ecosystems services, such as pest suppression by natural enemies (i.e. biological control of arthropod pests and weeds). This information is critical to informing conservation biological control measures aimed at maximizing enemy impacts on key pests while minimizing potential non-target effects. I am currently working on three main projects.

  1. Assessment of Collyria catoptron, a parasitoid wasp from China, as a potential classical biological control agent against wheat stem sawfly in N. America.

  2. Effects of semi-natural grassland habitats on grass stem feeding herbivore-parasitoid food web dynamics and pest pressure in small grains

  3. Effects of landscape structure on the diversity, composition and impact of natural enemy communities associated with key alfalfa pests

 

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

 

I have worked on trophic dynamics in a variety both natural and managed systems, from north Atlantic salt marshes and New Zealand beech forests, to agricultural landscapes in Germany and the USA. Prior to joining USDA in March, 2009, I was a research associate at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, where I worked on an ongoing collaborative project examining the impacts of habitat edges on the quantitative food web structure of leaf feeding Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and their associated parasitoids (flies and wasps). For more information on past research projects, please see the Grants and Fellowships section below.

 

PUBLICATIONS:

 

RESEARCH GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

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