Graduate researcher, Kara Dobson, is a Ph.D. student in Dr. Phoebe Zarnetske’s Spatial and Community Ecology (SpaCE) Lab at Michigan State University. Her research focus is on the effects of climate warming and rainfall variability on plant traits. Climate change poses a looming threat to the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Within ecosystems, my interest lies with plants and how they respond to stress caused by climate change. The way plants respond to stress varies widely and is dependent on things such as trait differences between plant species, differences in geographic location
My summer of science (fiction): Reflections from an undergraduate researcher
Each summer the KBS LTER supports students to participate in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the NSF. This is part of a larger undergraduate research program at KBS. Tori Niewohner is majoring in Environmental Science at Western Washington University. She wrote about her REU experience working with Kileigh Welshofer a graduate student in Dr. Pheobe Zarnetske's lab at MSU. ~~~~~ After my first day at the field site I would be working at for the summer, I attempted to describe it to someone. “Well, it’s a field of hexagonal structures