The Coe lab focuses on plant ecophysiology, examining how environmental stress shapes plant performance and growth, and in turn how plant responses influence ecosystem level processes. The lab uses bryophytes  (mosses and their relatives) as a model system to answer questions in this domain, focusing on ecosystems where they carry large ecological importance, often as keystone species. The lab applies a combination of field manipulation experiments, stable isotope analysis, analyses of big datasets, and laboratory photosynthetic stress assessment using infrared gas analysis and chlorophyll fluorescence.