Bried Lab
wetlands | odonates | insect conservation | applied plant ecology | community ecology
Ecological Resilience
We're interested in the ecological sensitivity of species and communities to environmental change and degradation. Largely we focus on ecological conservatism and floristic quality, a bioassessment approach used especially for North American prairies and wetlands. Increasingly we work with species traits and climate sensitivity.
Recent examples
Zinnen et al. (2025) What is ecological conservatism? A template analysis of its definitions. Natural Areas Journal
Jog & Bried (2024) The "full species list" fallacy in Floristic Quality Assessment. Ecosphere
Crisfield et al. (2023) The potential of trait data to increase the availability of bioindicators: A case study using plant conservatism values. Ecological Applications
Bried & Jog (2022) Nonnative species limitation of floristic quality scores in wetland mitigation performance and multimetric health assessment. Wetlands
Allen et al. (2021) Linking functional diversity, trait composition, invasion, and environmental drivers in boreal wetland plant assemblages. Journal of Vegetation Science
Insect Conservation
We're interested in prioritization, monitoring, and vulnerability of insects, especially the charismatic groups. Much of our attention centers on dragonflies (Odonata) as targets, tools, and models in applied ecology and conservation science. We also work on butterflies, bumblebees, and other pollinators.
Recent examples
Bried et al. (2025) The conservatism of prairie pollinators according to experts and empiricism. Insect Conservation and Diversity
Samways et al. (2025) Scientists' warning on the need for greater inclusion of dragonflies in global conservation. Insect Conservation and Diversity
Bried & Rocha-Ortega (2023) Using range size to augment regional priority listing of charismatic insects. Biological Conservation
Akçakaya et al. (2021) Calculating population reductions of invertebrate species for IUCN Red List assessments. Journal of Insect Conservation
Bried et al. (2020) Towards global volunteer monitoring of odonate abundance. BioScience
Community Ecology
We've dabbled in coexistence theory, metacommunity thinking, and ecogeographic diversity patterns. We recently studied dispersal mass effects and are currently reexamining the question of inferring competition structure from co-occurrence patterns. Dragonflies and damselflies make our usual study subjects.
Recent examples
Hasik et al. (2024) Is the local environment more important than within-host interactions in determining coinfection? Journal of Animal Ecology
Bried et al. (2023) Metacommunity concepts, approaches, and directions with Odonata. Dragonflies & Damselflies book chapter
Bried & Vilmi (2022) Improved detection of mass effect species assembly for applied metacommunity thinking. Journal of Applied Ecology
Ousterhout et al. (2019) A framework for linking competitor ecological differences to coexistence. Journal of Animal Ecology
Bried & Siepielski (2018) Opportunistic data reveal widespread species turnover in Enallagma damselflies at biogeographical scales. Ecography


