Lawrence W. Sheppard

Area of specialization
Wavelet analysis (data analysis of time-varying signals, with biological, physical or ecological applications)

Research interests:

• Statistical analysis of wavelet coherence
• Intracranial pressure analysis (biomedical physics application)
• Skin temperature, anesthesia and ensembles of neurons (biomedical physics application)
• Aphid monitoring and phenology
• Plankton monitoring and climate

Selected Publications:

Anderson, T.L., Sheppard, L.W., Walter, J.A., Hendricks, S.P., Levine, T.L., White, D.S., Reuman, D.C.. 2019. The dependence of synchrony on timescale and geography in freshwater plankton. Limnology and Oceanography. 64: 483-502. doi: 10.1002/lno.11054.

Zhao., L., Sheppard, L.W., Reid, P.C., Walter, J.A., and Reuman, D.C.. 2019. Proximate determinants of Taylor’s law slopes. Journal of Animal Ecology 88, 484-494. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12931.

Sheppard, L.W., Defriez, E.J., Reid, P.C., Reuman, D.C. 2019. Synchrony is more than its top-down and climatic parts: interacting Moran effects on phytoplankton in British seas. PloS Computational Biology 15: e1006744. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006744.

Walter, J.A., Sheppard, L.W., Venugopal, P.D., Reuman, D.C., Dively, G., Tooker, J.F., Johnson, D.M. 2019. Weather and regional crop composition variation drive spatial synchrony of lepidopteran agricultural pests. Ecological Entomology. doi: 10.1111/een.12830.

Sheppard, L.W., Zhao, L., Anderson, T.L., Walter, J.A., and Reuman, D.C. 2018.  wsyn: Wavelet approaches to synchrony.  A software package for the R programming language, published after review on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).  Developmnt version at https://github.com/reumandc/wsyn.

Reuman, D., Zhao, L., Sheppard, L.W., Reid, P.C. Cohen, J.E. 2018.  Synchrony affects Taylor's law in theory and data.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 114: 6788-6793.

Walter, J.A., Sheppard, L.W., Anderson, T.L., Kastens, J.H., Bejornstad, O.N., Liebhold, A.M., and Reuman, D.C. 2017.  The geography of synchrony.  Ecology Letters 20: 801-814.

Sheppard, L.W., Reid, P.C., and Reuman, D.C. 2017.  Rapid surrogate testing of wavelet coherences.  European Physical Journal, Nonlinear and Biomedical Physics 5:1.

Reuman, D.C., Zhao, L., Sheppard, L.W., Reid, P.C., and Cohen, J.E. 2017.  Synchrony affects Taylor's law in theory and data.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114: 6788-6793.

defriez, E., Sheppard, L., Reid, P.C., and Reuman, D.C.  2016.  Climate-change-related regime shifts have altered spatial synchrony of plankton dynmaics in the North Sea.  Global Change Biology 10: 1111/gcb.13229.

Sheppard, L., Bell, J., Harrington, R., and Reuman, D.  2015.  Changes in large-scale climate alter spatial synchrony of aphid pests.  Nature Climate Change 6: 610-613. 

Recent Presentations:

• Ghosh, S., Hallett, L.M., Sheppard, L.W., and Reuman, D. 2019. Estimating synchronous and compensatory dynamics in community ecology using a novel “copula” approach.  Ecological Society of America, Louisville, KY., August