We study the dynamics of food webs and ecosystems.

Through analysis of interactions among predators, herbivores, plants and decomposers, we resolve the functional role of species within aboveground and belowground food webs and how those roles determine attendant ecosystem functioning. We combine empirical research with mathematical modeling and deal with a variety of ecosystems and study species, ranging from puma and vicuña in Argentinian grasslands, lions in Tanzanian savanna, to insects and their spider predators in aboveground and belowground food webs in Connecticut grasslands.

Lab News

  • Congratulations to doctoral student Alex Moore who has accepted a postdoctoral position at the American Museum of Natural History to conduct conservation research and teach high school students with a focus on increasing diversity in STEM fields.  
  • Check out Os Schmitz's post on Earth Environmentalism and Jazz in honor of Earth Day 2018 on the Princeton University Press blog
  • Feeling down about the environment? Find hope in Os Schmitz’s book written to communicate to a broader public  how ecological scientific knowhow can be put to good use.
  • Check out the News Feature in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on Os Schmitz’s and colleague Chris Wilmer’s work.

Contact Us

Schmitz Lab
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
370 Prospect Street
Greeley Laboratory, Room 119
New Haven, CT 06511 USA
Phone: (203) 436-5276
oswald.schmitz [at] yale.edu

Recent Publications

Barton, B.T. and O.J. Schmitz. 2018. Opposite effects of daytime and nighttime warming on top-down control of plant diversity. Ecology 99:13-20.

Burghardt, K.T., M.A. Bradford and O.J. Schmitz. 2018. Acceleration or deceleration of litter decomposition by herbivory depends on nutrient availability through intraspecific differences in induced plant resistance traits. Journal of Ecology (online early).
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​Moore, A.C. 2018. Context-dependent consumer control in New England tidal wetlands. PLoS ONE 13(5): e0197170.

Smith-Ramesh, L.M., Rosenblatt A.E. and Schmitz, O.J. 2018. Multivariate climate change can favor large herbivore body size in food webs. American Naturalist 191:333-342.
See all publications.
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2016-2017 Schmitz Lab Members (from left to right): Os, Julia M, Rob B, Mary B, Alex M, Adam E, Sam M, and Kat W.