Research Interest

Michael Huston is a Professor in the Biology Department at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  He has worked for over thirty years on a wide range of issues related to biodiversity, specifically understanding the spatial distribution of species diversity at scales ranging from microscopic to global, in ecosystems including tropical and temperate forests, streams and coral reefs, temperate grasslands, and semi-arid shrublands.  His work includes ecological and evolutionary theory, computer simulation modeling, experiments, and field studies of vegetation patterns.  His theory of plant invasions integrates the effects of disturbances that cause plant mortality with the environmental conditions that affect plant growth rates (productivity), to predict which types of environments are most likely to be invaded by invasive plant species, and which types of environments are most likely to be dominated and severely impacted by invasive species.  He has worked on invasive plant issues in the deciduous forests of east Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, as well as in the grasslands and woodlands of Central Texas.