Takuji Usui

Dr. Usui will be joining EEB in the spring semester of 2027.

I am an evolutionary ecologist. My research focuses on how ecological and evolutionary processes jointly shape species geographical distributions and community structure, particularly in an era of rapid global change. As such, we are interested in asking fundamental questions on the spatial organization of genes, populations, and communities, including on what determines species geographical ranges and ecological niches, how species ranges are shifting with climate change and biological invasions, how populations adapt to increasing ecological change, and how these processes reshape species coexistence and community assembly. We therefore work at the interface of population ecology, community ecology, and evolutionary biology, and use a variety of methods including lab and field experiments with plant communities and plant-microbe systems, as well as data synthesis approaches.