Professor Luke Flory’s research focuses on the mechanisms and impacts of non-native species invasions with the goal of understanding mechanisms and impacts of invasions, and the long-term consequences of interactions between invasive species and other global change drivers such as climate change, emerging pathogens, and urbanization.

The Flory Lab explores basic and applied questions in natural and managed ecosystems such as the highlands of Galápagos, coffee agroecosystems in Costa Rica, eastern deciduous forests in the US, and pine forests and managed systems in Florida. The lab frequently publishes in leading journals, such as Ecology Letters, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Global Change Biology, and New Phytologist, among others. Their research has been funded by a variety of sources, including the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), the NSF/NIH/USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease (EEID) program, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and state agencies such as the Florida Forest Service.

Luke has been named a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Florida Climate Institute Distinguished Faculty Fellow, UF Research Foundation Professor, and UF International Educator of the Year. He holds a M.Sc. in Applied Ecology and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Indiana University