[Postdocs] [Current Students] [Undergraduates]
[Field Research Team Leaders] [Lab Associates] [Alumni & Visitors]
Postdoctoral Researchers: none now...please write if you are interested in jning our research group.
Current Students
Antônio earned his BS and MS degrees at Brazil's Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. He is interested in the population dynamics of trees in the Atlantic rain forests of Brazil's northeast.
Ernane Vieira Neto, Ph.D. Student in WEC (vieiraneto[AT]ufl.edu)
Ernane completed his BS and MS degrees at the Universidade Federal de Uberlandia. His PhD will investigate facotrs influencing the demography and dynamics of leaf-cutter ants (Atta).
Fabiane recently completed her Master's thesis at the Universidade Federal de Uberlandia, where she studied the consequences of hervbivory by leaf-cutter ants for Cerrado tree phenology and reproduction.
Field Research Team Leaders
Paulo Rubim
Heliconia Project, Manaus
Paulo completed his BS and MSc at UNESP where he studied the phenology of Atlantic forest tree species. He is studying factors influencing plant distribution at multiple spatial scales, and is now a PhD student at the Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (Brazil).
Laura Vivian Barbosa
Cerrado Plant Demography Project, Uberlandia
Laura has a BS and MS from the Universidade Federal de Uberlandia. Her interests are in decomposition, nutrient cycling, and Cerrado biogeochemistry.
Undergraduate Students: Interested in joining the lab? Click here [link] for more information!
Lab Associates
Diego Andrés Delamônica Bruna
Lab Productivity Monitor
Diego is focusing on dinosaur taxonomy, with his foci being (1) the use of tail features to resolve the Ankylosauridae and (2) a refusal to acknowledge the synonymizing of Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus. He has also developed a fondness for Vivaldi and the Brazilian duo Palavra Cantada. His father laments the passage of the Zeca Pagodinho phase. His mother does not.
Gustavo Cauê Delamônica Bruna
Lab Productivity Monitor
Gustavo has gone bipedal and has embarked on a new project investigating the limits of sibling patience. He has singlehandedly kept Vaccinium production an economically viable enterprise. Ball! Book! Mine! Dog! Mine! Mine! Mine!
The Rogues Gallery: Lab Alumni and Visitors
Paul Gagnon,
Postdoctoral Researcher (website)
Paul did research on the demography of plants in fragmented landscapes. He is now a faculty member in the Department of Biology at Murray State University
Heather Passmore,
Postdoctoral Researcher
Heather was a postdoc investigating the effect of forest fragmentation in central Amazonia on the structure of ant-plant mutualist networks. SHe is currently a consultant.
Christine did her research on how flooding and disturbance from cattle ranching influence the regeneration of Varzea forests in the Brazilian Amazon. She is currentlya postdoc in Uruguay.
Emilia Zoppas de Albuquerque
Ant-Plant Project, Manaus
Emilia joined us after completing her BS and MS at UNISINOS. She is studying how herbivory influences the mutualist ant colony structure abd preparing for her PhD at USP.
Tyler Webner & Shannon Moore,
SSTP Program
Tyler and Shannon spent a summer in the lab as part of UF's SSTP Program for outstanding high school students interested in research careers. They studied (1) how edge effects influence the growth and reproduction of tropical plants and (2) a study of ecosystem bia in the tropical research. They also became experts in international soccer since their tenure overlapped with the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Cris Follman Jurinitz,
Ph.D. in Ecology Universidade de São Paulo (2010)
She is interested in comparing tree demography in primary and regenerating Atlantic rain forests. I co-advise Cris with Alexandre Oliveira.
Charlotte Lee,
Postdoctoral Researcher
Charlotte is a theoretical ecologist with a Ph.D. from UC Davis. Together with Brian Inouye (FSU), we are working to understand the dynamics ant-plant mutualists, especially the mechanisms underlying the persistence of inferior mutualists partners.
Stella Copeland, M.S. in WEC (2009)
Stella's thesis was on how nitrogen enrichment and simulated changes in precipitation influenced two Cerrado grasses.
Current Position: PhD student, Susan Harrison's Lab at UC Davis.
Irina Skinner, BS in WEC (2009)
Irina was a CALS University Scholar in our lab. Her sentior thesis was on the effect of nutrient enrichment on wiregrass, with field work conducted at the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station> Find out more about Irina at her website.
Current Position: MS Student, Rob Fletcher's Lab at UF.
Thiago Izzo
Postdoctoral Researcher (2003-2008)
Thiago earned his Ph.D. in Ecology from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia. He is interested in the ecology of ant-plant mutualisms.
Current Position: Professor, Univ. Federal de Mato Grosso.
Gwen Iacona, M.S. in WEC (2008)
MS Thesis Research: Seedling establishment along productivity gradients in Longleaf pine savannas
Current position: Biologist for the Florida Natural Areas Inventory.
Alana Vaz Ferreira, M.S. in Biology, U. Federal de Uberlandia (2007)
MS Thesis research: Seed predation by ants, birds, and rodents in Brazil's Cerrado
Current Position: Cadet in the State Police, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Ian Fiske, M.S. in WEC (2006)
MS Thesis Research: Sampling in plant demographic studies and implications for matrix model projections.
Current position: Ph.D. student in Statistics at NCSU, soon to be a Resource Modeling Analyst for Nextera Energy Resources in Juno Beach, FL.
Camila Castanho, Postgraduate Scholar (2006)
Camila recently completed her Master's degree at the Universidade de São Paulo, and came here in Spring 2006 to learn new techniques in ecosystem ecology.
Alexandre Oliveira, Sabbatical Visitor (2006)
Alexandre is a faculty member at the Universidade de São Paulo. He is a forest ecologist and is interested in plant demography who conduced sabbatical research here in Spring 2006.
Bia Nogueira, M.S. in Ecology, USP (2005)
MS Thesis Research: Plant regeneration in Amazonian secondary forests.
Current position: PhD Student at INPA.
Matt Trager, M.S. in SNRE (2006)
MS Thesis research: Effects of nutrient manipulation on ant-plant mutualisms.
Current position: Ph. D. Student at UF's McGuire Center for Lepidopteran Research.
David M. Lapola, BDFFP Intern (2001)
Current position: following an MS at INPE, David is now a PhD student at the Max-Planck Institut (Earth System Modelling Program).
Maria Rosa Darrigo, Head Technician (2002-2003)
Current Position: PhD student in Ecology at UNICAMP.
Olavo Nardy, BDFFP Intern & Senior Thesis Student (1999)
Sylvia Heredia, BDFFP Intern (2001).
Current Position: Ph.D. student at UC Riverside.
Ariadna Valentina Lopes (avflopes[AT]ufpe.br)
Sabbatical Visitor (2007)
Ariadna is a faculty member at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, where she specializes on plant reproductive biology. Learn more about her research here.
Selene Baez (sbaez[AT]ufl.edu)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Selene earned her Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on plant community ecology and arid ecosystems. In addition to research on these topics conducted with long-term datasets, she is setting up a series of projects in longleaf pine savannas at the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station
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