Pages 17-18: Conservation Biology
Page 17: Conservation Biology: Overview
The Conservation Biology doctoral program began recruiting students this semester. The program includes comprehensive study of both flora and fauna, with a particular focus on local, Florida ecosystems. Uniquely, the program will extend beyond the typical biological realm; it will incorporate political, economic, and social aspects of conservation thus preparing students to apply their knowledge to real world problems.
Dr. David T. Kuhn, chair of the Department of Biology, believes that the new program, and the research associated with it, will be invaluable to the region. "The Conservation Biology program is focusing a great deal of effort on actually finding solutions to conservation problems," he says. "The program is extremely multidisciplinary, and it has already forged very prominent working relations with some of the economic giants of Central Florida. Plus, it's going to focus on urban ecological problems. We will deal with the conservation issues that are facing Central Florida."
"From what I've seen, this is one of few graduate programs in the environmental sciences that will stress the training of professional practitioners to tackle the tough challenges of real-world conservation. The dual emphasis on basic and applied sciences is especially appealing. Florida is an ideal place to study the responses of species to habitat conditions along urban-wildland gradients, and to generate solutions to urgent planning problems."
Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University, President, Center for Conservation Biology, a MacArthur Fellow and the recipient of the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize).
A Sample of the Faculty in the Program:
Dr. Reed F. Noss is an established conservation biologist and has worked world-wide to develop conservation strategies. He served as editor-in-chief of Conservation Biology from 1993-1997 and was the president of the Society for Conservation Biology between 1999-2001, and in 2002 he became the Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology and a Provost's Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Central Florida.
Dr. David G. Jenkins is the James and Annie Ying Eminent Scholar in Biology. He analyzes the interplay between regional and local wildlife communities. With the help of his students, he studies the small, isolated wetlands that once dotted the landscape before humans drained and filled the lowlands.
Dr. Pedro Francisco Quintana-Ascencio, the Conway Garden Club Endowed Scholar of Biology, researches rare plant communities and populations in the Lake Wales Ridge region of central Florida; he also studies the impact of fires and other disturbances in tropical rain forests and pine-oak forests in southern Mexico. Dr. Quintana-Ascencio plans to expand his work to include ecological restoration and the recovery of endangered species.
Dr. Linda J. Walters is interested in the factors that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms in our estuaries and oceans. She has spent days at a time researching underwater in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aquarius underwater habitat and has worked with the Keys Marine Laboratory and the Florida Institute of Oceanography.
"The Conservation Biology program is focusing a great deal of effort on actually finding solutionsto conservation problems."
Dr. David T. Kuhn, Chair
Dr. Jane Waterman studies male grouping of polar bears, in which amicable male groups form. Such all-male groups are quite rare among mammals and thus provide an excellent opportunity to gain important insights into selective forces leading to sociality.
Dr. Graham Worthy runs the Physiological Ecology and Bioenergetics Lab (PEBL). He is the Hubbs-Sea World Professor of Marine Biology and a Provost's Distinguished Research Professor. He researches physiological ecology of marine vertebrates through the study of their energetics, growth, and nutrition. The crux of his research centers around determining the energy requirements of marine mammals and how environmental conditions, and the availability and quality of food impacts their survival and growth.
More Information: www.biology.ucf.edu
Key Faculty:
David T. Kuhn (department chair), John E. Fauth, Reed F. Noss, David G. Jenkins, Christopher L. Parkinson, Pedro Francisco Quintana-Ascencio, I. Jack Stout, Linda J. Walters, Jane Waterman, John F. Weishampel, & Graham Worthy
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