Steven W. Kembel

Research interests

I am biologist interested in understanding the ecology and evolution of biodiversity. My research interests include statistical and computational methods in biology, comparative methods, evolutionary perspectives on community ecology, and the functional ecology of plant leaves and roots.

Appointments

• 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

• 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)
  • This paper was featured in a research focus article in the March 2006 issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution. (doi:10.1016/j.tree.2005.11.021)
• 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 S4 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.