PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Previous/Continuing Work of the recent past:
Local and Regional processes
With Jon Chase (Washington University), we examined the individual and interactive effects of several local community processes (resources, predators, and disturbances) on a protozoan and rotifer community (Kneitel and Chase 2004).  We found that each of these factors had the greatest effect on the community in the absence of the other factors.  With Orjan Ostman (Universty of Sockholm),  we examined how dispersal and disturbances (drying) interacted to affect species diversity at both local and regional scales (Ostman, Kneitel, and Chase, 2006).
Species Invasions
Most studies that examine species invasions typically focus on the traits of the invader or the recipient community to identify what characteristics are associated with a successful invasion.  I used protozoan communities from ponds and treeholes to better understand the mechanisms of species invasions.  A study conducted with several WashU undergraduates addressed: “What is the role of the source and recipient community composition in the success of species invasions?” This work is in preparation for submission and meanwhile, I continued along this vein with several other projects with both protozoan and plant communities to better understand the role of a community's history (source and recipient) in facilitating species invasions.  Daniel Perrault completed his Senior Honors thesis with me at Washington University in 2004 (winning the Department of Biology's Spector Prize for outstanding undergraduate research and honors thesis), working on the role of disturbances (drying) and resources in species invasions of communities (Kneitel and Perrault 2006). 

Previous work of the more distant past: Pitcher-plant Metacommunities
 I am interested in how processes at different scales produces the patterns of diversity in communities.  In recent years, metacommunity dynamics have been used as a framework to better understand questions of scale and species diversity.  Metacommunities are communities composed of patchy suitable habitat whose dynamics are driven by interactions (e.g., competition and predation) in local patches and dispersal among patches.  My dissertation research used pitcher plant inquilines as a model system to better understand the relative effects of local and regional processes on community composition at different scales.  I approached it by examining food web interactions at the local scale (Kneitel and Miller 2002, Kneitel in review), the importance of dispersal at the regional scale and its interaction with local community composition (Kneitel and Miller 2003), and interspecific trade-offs that lead to coexistence at different scales (Kneitel in review).
At FSU, I collaborated on several other projects.  These included empirical studies examining how community composition affects the success of species invasions (Miller, Kneitel, and Burns 2002), the role of heterogeneity and community size in metacommunities (Miller, Kneitel, and Mouquet in prep), and an examination of the permanent and ephemeral aquatic communities that occur inside woodpecker tree cavities (Walters and Kneitel 2004).  In addition, with Niko Mouquet as our faithful leader, we examined theoretically how the relationship between local and regional diversity can be altered through the community assembly process (Mouquet, Munguia, Kneitel, and Miller 2003).

...and going even further back (almost ancient history):
Disturbances in California grasslands
Disturbances can alter communities in a variety of ways. The effects of a single disturbance is usually examined, but a myriad of disturbances visit most communities. For my Master's thesis, I looked at the effects of fire and small-mammal disturbances (separately and together) on grassland plant diversity at the Carrizo Plain.  The results showed that disturbances can interact to alter species composition dramatically.  This had important consequences for conservation biology since both disturbances maintained the dominance of invasive species in this system, but shifted the relative abundances of grasses and forbs.