Andy studies large scale patterns in the richness, relatedness and abundance of species to understand how evolutionary history shapes contemporary biodiversity and how biodiversity might change with mounting anthropogenic pressures.  There is a persistent scientific puzzle as to why disparate ecological assemblages show shockingly similar structures in terms of allocation of metabolic energy across individuals and individuals across species.  Andy seeks to understand the origin of such generalities and approaches this task with a combination of principles form information theory and statistical physics along with novel data gleaned from museum specimen records and arthropod communities evolving in the dynamic landscape of Hawaii. Andy hopes his work will provide a foundation for studying how global change might drive future shifts in ecological and evolutionary processes.