DR. ITAMAR GILADI

My research interest spans population and community ecology of plants, landscape ecology and the ecology and evolution of animal-plant interactions.

I am interested in the interactions of land use history, landscape configuration, dispersal, management practices and local environment on plant in shaping biodiversity patterns in natural and agricultural ecosystems. In my research I apply fundamental ecological concepts and models, such as facilitation, metapopulation dynamics and island biogeography to study the distribution of plant species and plant traits in general, and species of conservation concern in particular.

I am also interested in the ecology and evolution of seed dispersal in general, and seed dispersal by ants (myrmecochory) in particular. Specifically, I am interested in studying the different means by which geographical, environmental and spatial contexts affect the formulation and testing of hypotheses concerning the ecology and evolution of mutualism.