Rebecca Meredith

From EESwiki

•Degree: BSc Biology Major, Western Washington University (Bellingham, WA)

•Study focus: Community Ecology

•Personal interests: Theater, music, Running, Rock Climbing and Yoga

Personal Statement

I am interested in Community Ecology and how humans’ effect on the environment may influence how ecosystems will assemble, evolve and sustain in the future. After a short respite from science I am returning to do a two years master’s program at the University of Munich in Ecology, Evolution and Systemtatics. Most of my previous work has focused on grassland communities I now hope to continue in this field with the intention of looking deeper into the questions of how community assembly is influenced by biotic and abiotic factors.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Biology at Western Washington University and wrote my thesis on how patterns of grassland community assembly are determined by initial plant composition. In my third year I presented the preliminary results at a Sigma XI conference and in my last year I presented the final results at a second Sigma XI conference and then at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference in Montreal, Canada (Summer 2005). After I completed my bachelors I moved to France to work on land management of alpine grasslands in the Southern Alps. The work concentrated on the effect of land-use change on the potential of plant communities to uptake nitrogen and most of my work focused on soil ecology and root structure. This research made up one aspect of a Europe-wide project (VISTA) analyzing how land-use change is affecting grassland biodiversity.

Currently, I am working on my Masters project in Groningen, The Netherlands (extension of the EES program), which is part of the larger project ASSEMBLE, with a goal to understand the rules that govern the assembly of local plant communities based on functional traits, and with a focus on making generalizations across particular systems. In my project I will be focusing on assessing how plant functional traits vary across environmental gradients, and I will also be doing some modeling to see how well the Northern European trait database LEDA approximates community trait composition at a local scale.

In the future I plan take on a PhD project and perhaps continue for a career in academia. I have thoroughly enjoyed by science experiences in the US and Europe and I hope to continue to develop ecological skills while fostering a global perspective on the world of science.

See my CV here!.

Check out my VOLVOXwiki too!

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