Tarik Gouhier

Associate Professor
Marine & Environmental Sciences
Northeastern University

t.gouhier@northeastern.edu Google Scholar ORCID GitHub

Why populations rise and fall

I study how dispersal, shared environmental variability, and species interactions induce correlated population fluctuations across a landscape and influence regional stability.

0.08 Average pairwise correlation across six patches
Six simulated population time series that synchronize as dispersal or shared environmental forcing increases
Individuals moving between patches
Weather experienced by all patches
Each line is a local population following the same noisy dynamics. Coupling through movement or common environmental conditions induces regionally synchronized population fluctuations that promote extinction risk.

What I work on

The fundamental goal of my research is to identify the processes that govern the dynamics of populations in order to predict and mitigate their susceptibility to environmental change. Doing so typically involves fitting novel mathematical models to large spatiotemporal datasets via modern statistical methods. The lab is currently using this general approach to address the following core themes: