Biology
Margaret Metz
Assistant Professor of Biology
- Margaret MetzCopyright, Steve Hambuchen
Biology-Psychology Hall
How do over a thousand species of trees coexist in an area the size of ~100 football fields? What happens to fire-prone forests when a non-native pathogen is introduced and kills high numbers of just a few species? I am a plant community ecologist, and those are two examples of questions I investigate in my research on forest diversity. I explore the relative importance of biotic interactions, disturbance, and the abiotic environment in driving dynamics. I have ongoing research programs in both the coastal forests of the western US, where a recently introduced pathogen is transforming forest diversity, and in the tropical rainforests of eastern Ecuador, where I have a long-term project on the role of natural regeneration in the maintenance of the hyperdiversity in Amazonian forests.
Teaching
BIO 141 – Investigations in Ecology and Environmental Science
BIO 223 – Plant Biology
BIO 490 – Disease Ecology
Academic Credentials
Postdoctoral Training, University of California, Davis. Plant Pathology.
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 2007. Integrative Biology
A.B. Princeton University, 1998. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology