My research aims to understand the processes that create and maintain species diversity by investigating trait-based mechanistic structure of ecological communities under natural and anthropogenic conditions. I work at scale by taking multiple approaches from organismal to biogeographical, I combine my interest in biomechanics, bioacoustics, community assembly, and landscape ecology to address fundamental questions about how the intersection between sensory ecology, functional morphology, and life history traits explains local and landscape level species diversity. I also investigate ecological dynamics (patterns and processes) along environmental gradients including natural and anthropogenic gradients. My postdoctoral research aims to understand the biomechanical basis of dietary niche partitioning in bat communities in mainland and island communities of the Gulf of Guinea forests. I utilize field-generated data (bite force, bat biometrics), and post-field processing of bat feces to quantify feeding efficiency, and metabarcoding of consumed insect prey.