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Graduate Group in Ecology
Department of Plant Sciences University of California, Davis 1 Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 mjskaer@ucdavis.edu |
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News and Current Events
> The UC Davis Natural Reserve System is helping to fund my research at the Jepson Prairie Reserve!
> The NSF-funded Global Invasions Network will be funding my Research Exchange with Dr. Maarten Eppinga at Utrecht University in the Netherlands!
> My research featured on a UC Extenstion blog! click here
> The NSF-funded Global Invasions Network will be funding my Research Exchange with Dr. Maarten Eppinga at Utrecht University in the Netherlands!
> My research featured on a UC Extenstion blog! click here
About Me:
I am a fourth year PhD student in the Graduate Group in Ecology at UC Davis, working with Dr. Kevin J. Rice in the Big Science Lab. My research interests include biological invasions, global change, spatial ecology, and conservation biology. My dissertation research focuses on the impacts of climate change and management practices on spatial aggregation in a noxious late-season rangeland weed, barbed goatgrass (Aegilops triuncialis).
I have recently been involved in research in collaboration with ecologists at the USDA Agricultural Research Service - Exotic & Invasive Weeds Research Unit. We evaluated the decomposition of an invasive aquatic plant, Ludwigia hexapetala, and its possible impacts to other trophic levels and nutrient cycling across a nutrient gradient in California's Russian River watershed. The combined effects of continuous leaf litter inputs and low rates of decomposition of stem material have the potential to greatly alter macroinvertebrate communities, and may create positive feedback loops for increasing nutrient-enrichment and further spread of the weed.
My colleagues and I will be continuing our research on Ludwigia, looking at its impacts on the surrounding community, as well as attempting to understand mechanisms of persistance and spread from a spatial perspective.
I earned my master of science degree in biology from Sonoma State University in 2009, where I worked with Dr. J. Hall Cushman. In my thesis research, I evaluated the impacts of cattle grazing on an invaded coastal California grassland. My collaborators and I found variable effects depending on life-history characteristics and geographic origin of plants, but results suggested that grazing would be a promising conservation tool, primarily due to dramatic reductions in abundance of exotic annual grasses.
I am a fourth year PhD student in the Graduate Group in Ecology at UC Davis, working with Dr. Kevin J. Rice in the Big Science Lab. My research interests include biological invasions, global change, spatial ecology, and conservation biology. My dissertation research focuses on the impacts of climate change and management practices on spatial aggregation in a noxious late-season rangeland weed, barbed goatgrass (Aegilops triuncialis).
I have recently been involved in research in collaboration with ecologists at the USDA Agricultural Research Service - Exotic & Invasive Weeds Research Unit. We evaluated the decomposition of an invasive aquatic plant, Ludwigia hexapetala, and its possible impacts to other trophic levels and nutrient cycling across a nutrient gradient in California's Russian River watershed. The combined effects of continuous leaf litter inputs and low rates of decomposition of stem material have the potential to greatly alter macroinvertebrate communities, and may create positive feedback loops for increasing nutrient-enrichment and further spread of the weed.
My colleagues and I will be continuing our research on Ludwigia, looking at its impacts on the surrounding community, as well as attempting to understand mechanisms of persistance and spread from a spatial perspective.
I earned my master of science degree in biology from Sonoma State University in 2009, where I worked with Dr. J. Hall Cushman. In my thesis research, I evaluated the impacts of cattle grazing on an invaded coastal California grassland. My collaborators and I found variable effects depending on life-history characteristics and geographic origin of plants, but results suggested that grazing would be a promising conservation tool, primarily due to dramatic reductions in abundance of exotic annual grasses.
