Ellen Welti

Ellen Welti is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University working on grassland insect communities. Her work has spanned North America’s Great Plains and beyond with previous positions held in Oklahoma, Montana, and Germany. Research in her lab examines why, which, and how insect communities vary over space and time. She is interested in insects both as critical members of ecological systems, preforming key ecosystem services like decomposition and nutrient cycling, and as fast-changing indicator taxa. Her lab has an inordinate interest in the ecology of grasshoppers, an important group of grassland herbivores. The lab investigates how grassland management, biogeochemistry, changing climate, plant-insect interactions, and altered herbivore communities affect insect species and their traits using ecological time series and field experiments.