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MICHAEL G. BARBOUR |
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MICHAEL G. BARBOUR |
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CONTACT
Michael G. Barbour
Plant Ecologist
Environmental Horticulture Dept.
University of California, Davis 95616
Phone: (530) 752-2956
Fax: (530) 752-1819
Email: mgbarbour@ucdavis.edu
EXPERIENCE SUMMARY.I have been at UCD since 1967, initially as a faculty member of the Botany Department, then moving to ENH in 1994.
My teaching and research experiences are in plant ecology. In the fall I team-teach ERS/ENH 144, Trees and Forests; in the winter I co-teach a new course, ERS 144, Fire Ecology; and in the spring I co-teach PLB 147, Plant Communities of California. I also co-teach the graduate course ECL 206, Concepts and Methods in Plant Community Ecology, every fall quarter.
I've participated in co-writing textbooks for introductory plant biology, plant ecology, and the vegetation of California and North America.
My research blends ecophysiology, population biology, and vegetation science. I'm interested in how dominant species (populations) tolerate and respond to particular environmental stresses. Along the coastal strand, I've examined plant response to salt spray; in tidal salt marshes, to soil salinity and plant competition; in upper montane conifer forests, to winter snow pack and summer heat and drought; in warm deserts, to freezing temperatures, high temperatures, and soil salinity; in vernal pools, to geological substrate, soil type, geographic region, and annual fluctuations in winter precipitation. Research results have been published in the American Journal of Botany, the Journal of Biogeography, Forest Ecology and Management, Madrono, the Journal of Vegetation Science, and as chapters in several technical monographs.
Current research projects include: (1) a state-wide survey of vernal pool vegetation in California for conservation purposes; (2) a search for veg- etation and soil traits that define "old-growth" status for montane mixed conifer forest and a continuum of values for those traits that correlate with successional distance from old-growth status; and (3) a reconstruction of pre-contact old-growth Californian mixed conifer forest. These projects have been supported by the USDA Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the California Department of Fish and Game and the California Department of Transportation.
Some of my research has been done abroad in Argentina, Australia, Israel, and Spain.
I am currently directing two MS and seven PhD candidates in the Ecology, Geography, and Plant Biology Graduate Groups. Examples of their research includes studies of fire history in the upper montane red fir forest, epiphytic lichen and bryophyte communities on mixed conifer trees, patterns of species and community diversity in montane meadows, the affect of atmospheric N deposition on competitiveness of introduced annuals, defining old growth forest vegetation in the Lake Tahoe Basin, reconstructing pre-contact Sierran forest vegetation, the role of mycorrhizae in maintaining a major montane vegetation ecotone, and biogeography of the vernal pool flora.
I am looking for new graduate students who have some experience with-- and interest in studying--montane forests or vernal pools. Students who already have an MS are preferred.
Eleven of my past students have completed MS degrees, and twenty have completed PhDs. They are currently employed in state or federal agencies, as faculty in community colleges or universities, as members of non-profit conservation organizations, or as independent consultants for private and public entities.
PUBLICATIONS
