Jason Martina recently joined Texas A&M as the coordinator of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Doctoral Program and Applied Biodiversity Science Program. He earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Plant Biology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior working on the impacts of plant invasion on carbon and nitrogen cycling in Michigan wetlands. After which he did a postdoc at the University of Michigan where he continued investigating the causes and consequences of plant invasion in coastal Great Lakes wetlands through a combination of computational modeling, mesocosm experiments, and field surveys. Before starting this position at Texas A&M, Jason was an assistant professor at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, TX. Recently, he received funding to determine the efficacy of different management techniques using computational modeling to inform management decisions focused on the control of common reed (Phragmites australis) in the Saginaw Bay area in Michigan. Jason is very interested in the integration of conservation theory with practice because without such interaction real-world progress will be hard to achieve.
Kristina Chyn awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for her upcoming dissertation work
Congratulations to ABS student Kristina Chyn, Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences! She has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for her upcoming dissertation research in Taiwan focusing on landscape ecology and effects of roads on reptiles and amphibians in island ecosystems.
Dr. Patrick Bixler co-guest editor of special issue titled “Network Governance and Large Landscape Conservation”
Check out the new special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, titled “Network Governance and Large Landscape Conservation”. Dr. Patrick Bixler is both a co-guest editor on the special issue and lead author on two of the papers (“Network governance for large-scale natural resource conservation and the challenge of capture” and “Networks and landscapes: a framework for setting goals and evaluating performance at the large landscape scale”) and the editorial. The full issue is available online here.
Margot Wood successfully defends dissertation
Margot Wood, ABS student in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, successfully defended her dissertation “Landscape Dynamics, Mammal Connectivity, and Conservation Policies in a Costa Rican Biological Corridor”. She will graduate this summer. Learn more about her research related to government payment for ecosystem services programs, biological corridor policies, and how these policies/programs influence target conservation mammalian species within the biological corridor of Paso de Las Nubes in Costa Rica on her website. Congratulations Margot!
ABS students Amelia Min-Venditti and Connie Woodman win 3rd place for their EIS poster
Congratulations to ABS students Amelia Min-Venditti and Connie Woodman! They received 3rd place for their poster “Evaluating waterborne disease risk in remote rainforest tourism” at the 17th Annual Ecological Integration Symposium.
