Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award

James E. (Jeb) Byers, professor in the Odum School of Ecology, is an internationally recognized leader in the disciplines of population, community and marine ecology. He is best known for quantifying and predicting the success of biological invasions. He has performed some of the world’s leading ecological studies on interactions among native organisms and nonnative species, focusing primarily on Georgia’s coast. Byers has built mechanistic mathematical models to analyze impacts of climate change, including expansions of invasive parasites and subtropical species into the state’s marine and freshwater resources. His approach combines experimental work and fieldwork at local, regional and continent-wide scales with leading-edge computational models, providing critical theoretical insights. He has published 139 peer-reviewed papers, many appearing in the highest-impact scientific journals. His work has contributed to the global understanding of host-parasite ecology, ecosystem engineering and impacts of climate change and other environmental influences on species and their habitat expansions.