His lab studies the ecology of food webs, ecosystems, and watersheds, and most of our research occurs in freshwaters. Current research areas include:

• Animal-mediated nutrient cycling, including understanding variation among individuals using principles of ecological stoichiometry and metabolic ecology, and the importance of animals at the ecosystem scale
• Long-term response of a lake (reservoir) ecosystem to changes in agricultural practices, and how internal processes such as animal-mediated nutrient cycling provide resilience in terms of the lake response
• How nutrients, light, and other factors mediate energy and nutrient flow through food chains

Professor Vanni takes a diverse approach to research, including whole-ecosystem studies, field and lab experiments, meta-analyses/syntheses, and modeling. In his lab, research is a collaboration among undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and research associates.

Vanni states “my career at Miami has been driven by my belief that teaching, research, and service are synergistic activities,” Vanni said. “I believe that my performance in any one of these areas is greatly enhanced by the others, and that this has allowed me to become a teacher-scholar that underlies Miami’s core mission.”