My dissertation research integrated a field-based empirical study of plant-animal interactions and environmental variability with demographic modeling using matrix  models. This work focused on the response of an understory shrub, Ardisia escallonioides, to hurricane disturbance in Florida.  This work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Miami.

For more information, see: 

Carol Horvitz, Shripad Tuljapurkar, and John Pascarella. 2005. Plant-animal interactions in random environments: habitat-stage elasticity, seed predators and hurricanes. Ecology 86: 3312-3322.

Shripad Tuljapurkar, Carol C. Horvitz, and John B. Pascarella. 2003. The many growth rates and elasticities of populations in random environments. The American Naturalist 162: 489-503.

John B. Pascarella and Carol C. Horvitz. 1998. Hurricane disturbance and the population dynamics of a tropical understory shrub: megamatrix elasticity analysis. Ecology 79:547-563.

John B. Pascarella. 1998. Hurricane disturbance, plant-animal interactions, and the reproductive success of a tropical shrub. Biotropica 30(3) 416-424.

John B. Pascarella. 1998. Resiliency and response to hurricane disturbance in the tropical shrub Ardisia escallonioides (Myrsinaceae). American Journal of Botany 85:1207-1215.

John B. Pascarella. 1996. The biology of Periploca sp. (Lepidoptera: Cosmopterigidae): A specialized gall maker on Ardisia escallonioides (Myrsinaceae). Florida Entomologist 79:606-610.