Dr. Faeth's research focuses on terrestrial and urban ecology.

His research in terrestrial ecology studies the ecology and evolution of plant-fungi-herbivore-natural enemy interactions. Specifically, he studies how these interactions vary from parasitic to mutualistic over time and in different environments, and based upon host and symbiont genotypes and environmental variation. Through field, laboratory and greenhouse experiments, and molecular methods, he examines the role of endophytic fungi (asymptomatic fungal infections within plants) in mediating interactions among host plants and their invertebrate and vertebrate herbivores, plant competitors, and seed predators. The research group tests how ecological selective pressures, such as drought and nutrients, and migration maintains or disrupts mutualistic interactions between endophytic fungi and plants and how endophytic fungi influence plant and arthropod community structure.

As of 2008, more than half of the world’s population now resides in cities or their suburbs.  Urbanization and suburbanization are well known for altering biodiversity, but the mechanisms for changes in diversity, food web structure, relative abundances of species, and trophic dynamics are poorly understood in urban areas, even though urban areas are the most rapidly expanding habitat type on earth.  Dr. Faeth’s research group studies how urbanization influences arthropod diversity and how trophic structure of plant-herbivore-natural enemy communities changes in human-dominated environments. They use observational and experimental methods to determine the underlying causes for changing in biological populations and communities in an urbanizing world.

Plant-Microbial-Herbivore Interactions:

Cheplick, G..P. and S.H. Faeth. 2009. The Ecology and Evolution of the Grass-Endophyte Symbiosis. Oxford University Press, Oxford UK (in press, 2009).

Faeth, S.H., Saikkonen K. and M. Helander.  2004. Asexual Neotyphodium endophytes in a native grass reduce competitive abilities. Ecology Letters 7: 304-313.

Urban Ecology:

Grimm, N.B, S.H. Faeth ,C.L. Redman, J. Wu, X. Bai, J. Briggs and N.E. Golubiewski. 2008. Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319:756-760.

Faeth, S.H., E. Shochat and W.A. Marussich. 2005. Urban trophic dynamics. BioScience 55(5): 399-407.