My areas of teaching include Field Ecology, a graduate seminar in conservation biology (Conservation in Fragmented Landscapes), and an undergraduate course on sustainable development and globalization (Our Common Future). My research focuses on trophic interactions in tropical agroecosystems and ecological succession in tropical regions.

My current research examines the function of biological diversity in the coffee agroecosystem in Southern Mexico. In particular, this research focuses on top-down processes associated with reduction of herbivory by vertebrate and invertebrate predators, and their impact on coffee yield. My research group examines the regulation of herbivory using a comparative approach along an agricultural intensification gradient. Two general hypotheses guide this research: 1) that top down control in agroecosystems can limit herbivory, and 2) that diversity and abundance of predators (vertebrates and invertebrates) affect the degree of this limitation. Using coffee as a model system with varying degrees of diversity, our group predicts that as the diversity of these predators is reduced along the agricultural intensification gradient, so is their ability to control herbivores, with a resultant decline in yield.

I am also investigating how local level multi-species interactions generate landscape level spatial pattern in the ant Azteca instabilis. We have established a 45-hectare plot in an organic coffee plantation and are conducting research on the interactions between the ants, their mutualistic scale insects, the natural enemies of the scale and a phorid fly that parasitizes the ant.

Another research project examines ecological succession after anthropogenic (agriculture) disturbance in the Atlantic lowlands of Nicaragua. We are focusing on the role of ants and rodents as secondary dispersers of seeds into abandoned pastures.

More general interests include the role of the agricultural matrix in the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable development, and political ecology in the Third World, especially Latin America.

Awards and Grants:
"Spacial scaling with an unusual food web structure: the case of Azteca ants in the coffee agroecosystem." With my colleague, John Vandermeer, this project combines food web dynamics and spatial modelling to understand and predict the formation of a clumped distribution by the ant Azteca instabiles in coffee plantations in southern Mexico. Funded by NSF (2004-2008) "Matrix Quality and the Value of Biodiversity: Conservation of Bats in Neotropical Agroforestry Systems." With my colleague Kimberly Williams-Guillen we are examining the function of bats as predators of herbivores in coffee plantations unders verying management intensity. Funded by NSF (2006-2008) "Vector-transmitted disseases in a changing environment: a dynamical perspective." With my colleague Mercedes Pascual we are examing the effects of land use changes (deforestation, fragmentation and agricultural irrigation projects) on the incidence of vercor-born diseases in Costa Rica and India. Funded by the GESI (2006-2008). "Forest sucessional dynamics in the oak-dominated forests of the E. S. George Reserve: A spatially explicit approach." With my colleague John Vandermeer we are examining ecological sucession of an oak forest using spatially explicit models. Funded by the McIntire-Stennis (2007-2009)

Research Interests:
Major research interest involves biological diversity in managed and natural tropical and temperate ecosystems. Research focuses on the effects of agricultural transformation and its impact on biodiversity. Another aspect of the research relates to the ecological function of biodiversity in diverse tropical agroecosystems. My must current research of the coffee agroforestry system in Chiapas, Mexico examines emergent spatial patterns associated with an arboreal ant species three coffee pests and the ecological complexity responsible for their regulation. Most of this research is conducted in Mesoamerica (Nicaragua and Mexico). More general interest is related to sustainable agriculture and conservation in Latin America as well as the interactions between forests and agroecosystems. Our research project in Mexico is beginning to include aspects of forest fragmentation and metapopulation analyses under different qualities of agricultural matrices. My students are working on a variety of research projects at the intersection of conservation and agroecology. Most of our research emphasize the impartance of incorporating agricultural systems in models for conservation of biodiversity.

Current/Recent Research:

• Spatial scaling with an unusual food web structure: the case of Azteca ants in the coffee agroecosystem.
• Vector-transmitted diseases in a changing world: a dynamic perspective
• Effects of post agricultural succession on the assemblage of ants in the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.
• Matrix Quality and the Value of Biodiversity: Conservation of Bats in Neotropical Agroforestry Systems

Teaching Interests:
In my courses I like to challenge students to think for themselves. Most of my courses have a strong Latin American flavor because I am from Latin America (Puerto Rico) and I conduct research in Latin America (Mexico, Mesoarica, and more recently, Brazil). Most of my courses are interdisciplinary and are taught from a social justice perspective. I teach undergraduate courses in sustainable development and globalization, and the agroecology and political ecology of the food system, a graduate course in field ecology and graduate seminars on topics that range from conservation in fragmented habitats to biodiversity in agricultural systems.

Current/Recent Teaching:
In the fall I teach Our Common Future: The Impacts of Globalization (ENVIRON 270), Field Ecology (SNRE 455), and a graduate seminar: "Conservation in Fragmented Landscapes." In the winter I teach Food, Land and Society (NRE 318) wich has a three week field component at the end of the course. This year we will be going to Chiapas, Mexico to study their agricultural systems. Before the Bush Administration's recent restrictions on educational trips to Cuba we took our class to Cuba for three weeks to study the advances that Cuba had made in sustainable agriculture.

Selected Publications:

• Badgley, C., J. Moghtader, E. Quintero, E. Zakem, J. M. Chappell, K. Aviles-Vázquez, A. Samulon, and I. Perfecto. In press. Organic agriculture and the global food supply. Renewable Resources and Food Systems (in press)
• Perfecto, I., I. Armbrecht, S. M. Philpott, L. Soto Pinto and T. V. Dietsch. In Press. Shade coffee and the stability of forest margins in Northern Latin America. In T. Tscharntke, M. Zeller and C. Leuschner (eds.), The Stability of Tropical Rainforest Margins: Linking Ecological, Economic and Social Constraints. Springer-Verlag, Berlin (in press)
• Vandermeer, J. and I. Perfecto. 2007. The agricultural matrix and the future paradigm for conservation. Conservation Biology 21: 274-277
• Perfecto, I. and J. Vandermeer. 2006. The effect of an ant-hemipteran mutualism on the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) in southern Mexico. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117: 218-221.
• Vandermeer, J., and I. Perfecto. 2006. A keystone mutualism drives pattern in a power function. Science 311: 1000-1002
• Armbrecht, I., I. Perfecto and E. Silverman. 2006. Limitation of nesting resources for ants in Colombian coffee plantations. Environmental Entomology 31: 403-410.
• Bunker, D. E., F. De Clerck, R. K. Colwell, I. Perfecto, O. Phillips, M. Sankaran and S. Naeem. 2005. Biodiversity loss and above-ground carbon storage in a tropical forest. Science 310: 1029-1031.
• Perfecto, I., J. Vandermeer, A. Mas and L. Soto Pinto. 2005. Biodiversity, yield and shade coffee certification. Ecological Economics 54: 435-446
• Perfecto, I., J. H. Vandermeer, G. pez, G. Ibarra-Nez, R. Greenberg, P. Bichier and S. Langridge. 2004. Greater predation of insect pests in a diverse agroecosystem: The role of resident Neotropical birds in shade coffee farms. Ecology 85: 2677-2681
• Armbrecht, I., I. Perfecto, and J. Vandermeer. 2004. Enigmatic biodiversity correlations: ant diversity responds to diverse resources. Science 304: 284-286
• Perfecto, I., A, H. Mas, T. Dietsch and J. Vendermeer. 2003. Species richness along an agricultural intensification gradient: A tri-taxa comparison in shade coffee in southern Mexico. Biodiversity and Conservation 12: 1239-1252.
• Perfecto, I. and I. Armbrecht. 2002. The coffee agroecosystem in the neotropics: Combining ecological and economic goals. In: Tropical Agroecosystems, J. Vandermeer, ed. Advances in Agroecology Series, CRC Press, NY.
• Perfecto, I. and J. Vandermeer. 2002. The quality of the agroecological matrix in a tropical montane landscape: ants in coffee plantations in southern Mexico. Conservation Biology 16: 174-182.
• Morales, H., I. Perfecto and B. Ferguson. 2001. Traditional fertilization and its effect on corn insect populations in the Guatemalan highlands. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 84: 145-155.
• Soto-Pinto, L., I. Perfecto, Castillo-Hernanz, J. and Caballero-Nieto, J. 2000. Shade effects on coffee production at the Northern Tzeltal zone of the State of Chiapas, Mexico. Agriculture Ecosystems and Environmentt 80:61-69.
• Vandermeer, J., I. Granzow de la Cerda, D. Voucher, I. Perfecto, and J. Ruiz. 2000 Hurricane disturbance and tropical tree species diversity. Science 290: 788-791.
• Morales, H. and I. Perfecto. 2000. Traditional knowledge and pest control in the Guatemalan highlands. Agriculture and Human Values 17: 49-63.
• Vandermeer, J. and I. Perfecto. 1997. The agroecosystem: a need for the conservation biologist's lens. Conservation Biology 11: 1-3
• Perfecto, I., R. Rice, R. Greenberg, and M. Van der Voolt. 1996. Shade coffee as refuge of biodiversity. BioScience 46: 589-608