Assessing Tropical Rainforest Regeneration and Resilience
Matthew Potts, Professor
Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Applications for Spring 2024 are closed for this project.
Forest restoration is an increasingly relevant topic across the globe, hailed as a key component to solutions for climate change, biodiversity crises, and sustainable development. Despite a growing awareness of the importance of forests and the need for ecosystem restoration, crucial information on forest resilience and natural regeneration is often lacking to inform the design of forest restoration initiatives. The rainforests of eastern Madagascar, a renowned biodiversity hotspot facing extensive and ongoing deforestation, provides an excellent case study in this context. While both rural, forest-reliant communities and the Malagasy government increasingly recognize the need for ecosystem protection and restoration, resources to protect and restore forests are still extremely limited, and little is known about the natural successional trajectories in Madagascar’s forests. To better target limited resources for restoration, it is essential to understand an ecosystem’s capacity to regenerate following both natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and which barriers to regeneration might be most impactful. This knowledge will allow for the development of context-specific restoration actions that are most likely to maximize the impact of intervention, and thus better inform strategies for forest restoration in a changing world.
Role: Through this research project, the URAP student will have the opportunity to work with forest inventory and groundcover data in cyclone-damaged and/or post-agricultural forest restoration sites. The student will work with their mentor to process data, as well as to form research questions and design & execute analyses on one or more of the following topics: Natural forest regeneration trajectories, groundcover vegetation in regeneration sites, carbon sequestration in naturally regenerating and planted restoration sites, and/or hurricane impacts on tree survival and secondary forest structure.
The student’s project will support ongoing research on rainforest restoration, regeneration, and resiliency in Madagascar and provide valuable experience for the student in data preparation, analysis, and visualization. Depending on student interest and ability, this opportunity could also lead to field research and/or senior thesis development. The purpose of this position is to provide research experiences to a student who is interested in pursuing a career in ecology research and/or conservation management, and to provide skills to build on in their own future research project.
Qualifications: The ideal candidate for this position should have a keen interest in pursuing a career in ecology, ecosystem management/restoration, or conservation science. Previous experience with and general knowledge of tropical forest ecology and ecosystem restoration is a plus. All students should have excellent reading, writing, and organizational skills. Preferred qualifications include: Having taken basic statistics and ecology classes; and experience with programming (e.g. R, Python, etc) and/or geospatial software and analyses (e.g. Google Earth Engine, ArcGIS, QGIS). In your essay, please be sure mention (1) why you believe conservation, restoration, and/or ecology are important; and (2) your career interests, and how you think this project will either (a) equip you for your long-term goals or (b) help you in the process of figuring out your career goals.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Kat (Katherine) Culbertson
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Social Sciences Environmental Issues Biological & Health Sciences