Faculty Research

Beth Kaplin, PhD, CTEC Director and AUNE faculty member, currently has long term research projects in the Nyungwe Forest Reserve, Rwanda, East Africa. Research projects in this tropical montane forest include long-term phenology, forest regeneration, seed dispersal ecology, forest monkey behavioral ecology and habitat use studies, and biodiversity surveys.

Beth Kaplin, PhD and Michelle Zjhra, PhD, faculty member at Georgia Southern University, were awarded a AAAS/WISC Travel Award in spring 2002 to initiate a study on the Masoala Penninsula in Madagascar in collaboration with Malagasy colleagues and graduate students. The study will examine aspects of forest dynamics in a large plot, with a focus on pollination biology and seed dispersal ecology.

Peter Palmiotto, DF, ES faculty, has studied in Malaysia and is specifically interested in the biological atributes of individual tree species that influence ecosystem level processes and biological diversity in forest ecosystems.

CTEC Students are currently conducting thesis and dissertation work throughout the tropics in Belize, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Rwanda and Uganda.