Personnel | biogeographylab

Scott H. Markwith, Ph.D.

Professor

Ph.D. University of Georgia

M.S. University of Georgia

B.A. University of Mary Washington

Research Interests

Ecological Biogeography
Terrestrial, Wetland, and Nearshore Environments
Population and Community Level Processes
Environmental Restoration
Human-Wildlife Interactions
Vegetation Dynamics and Disturbance

As a biogeographer I study the processes, natural and anthropogenic, that shape the spatial patterns we see in wild populations, communities, and ecosystems. My interests span gradients from terrestrial to aquatic systems, with research experience in freshwater and estuarine wetland ecosystems, such as the Everglades, Kissimmee River, Indian River Lagoon, and Lake Worth Lagoon, the Pantanal of Brazil, in rivers of the southeastern Piedmont, upland forest and wetland systems of the Appalachian and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, and alpine zones in the Himalaya of Nepal.

Current Graduate Students

Rabindra Parajuli

Ph.D. student, Fall 2019 - Present
M.S. Tribhuvan University

B.S. Tribhuvan University

Rabindra is originally from the Nepal Himalayas. As a part of his MS dissertation, he assessed the nurse effect of shrubs in maintaining community plant species diversity and floristic composition in High-altitude Himalayas. Since his master’s, he is engaged in many researches, both nationally and internationally, in the areas of the plant (landscape, community and vegetation) ecology, soil microbial ecology, forest resource assessment, and sustainable resource management and conservation. For his doctoral dissertation, Rabindra aims to assess plant interactions’ response in high-elevation alpine mountains using temperature manipulations, and various gradients – both natural (elevation, precipitation) and anthropological (wildfire or grazing). He aims to produce a predictive model of how climate change and fire regime or grazing may alter species interaction patterns, modify species distribution and affect belowground microorganisms and above-ground plant species. One of the goals would be to disentangle how interactions shape community assembly and affect the plant diversity-productivity-stability relationships.

Amber Graham-Moore

M.S. student, Spring 2020 - Present
B.S. Florida Atlantic University

Amber is currently involved with the ecological monitoring of the Kissimmee River Restoration Project as an environmental scientist for FAU Center for Environmental Studies in contract with the South Florida Water Management District. She is the lead scientist on the River Channel Littoral Vegetation survey. For her thesis research she plans to focus on hydrological impacts on the vegetation communities of the Kissimmee River Valley.

Heather Smith

Ph.D. student, Fall 2021 - Present

M.S. Florida Atlantic University

B.S. Millsaps College

Heather is developing an ecosystem model of Lake Okeechobee to measure the impacts of habitat restoration and climate change. She is interested in restoration ecology and human-environment interactions, and has conducted research on pesticide impacts on loggerhead sea turtles, wading bird prey availability, and mapped restoration projects and examined predator-prey interactions in the lower Mississippi River.