The Environmental and Plant Biology Fall 2013 Colloquia series presents Dr. Simon Queenborough on “Long-term Flowering and Fruiting Patterns in Dioecious Tropical Forest Trees” on Friday, Nov. 8, 11:50 a.m. in Porter 104.
Dr. Simon Queenborough
Queenborough is Assistant Professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology at Ohio State University. His areas of expertise are tropical ecology and population and community ecology.
“Understanding the biotic and abiotic factors that influence reproduction in plants is of key interest, especially in ecosystems that will likely experience profound changes in climate,” Queenborough says in his abstract. “Whilst a number of long-term datasets have explored reproduction at the community-level, little is known about how individual trees vary in flowering and fruiting behaviour over numerous reproductive cycles.
“In this study, I examine reproduction in 3,500 individuals of 10 coexisting species of dioecious Myristicaceae (nutmegs) trees on a large forest plot in the western Amazon over 12 years. I use an innovative Bayesian approach to examine the climatic, environmental and biotic neighborhood factors that influence flowering and fruiting.
“The results highlight implications for long-term tropical tree persistence in the face of climate change in the Amazon, as well as mechanisms of coexistence in this common tree family.”
“My research focuses on mechanisms of species coexistence in the broadest sense, considering questions of niche differentiation in closely-related species, the effects of breeding system on resource allocation, demography and survival, and comparative ecological studies of species and ecosystems. To address these issues I work mostly with extensive mapped populations of tropical trees as well as annual plants,” he says on his website. See his lab website for more information.
The colloquium is hosted by Dr. Brian McCarthy.
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