Nancy Garwood

Research Professor
 
Ph.D. 1979, University of Chicago
 
Tropical botany, ecology, systematics, conservation
 
Office & Lab: Life Science II room 425
Office & Lab Phone: 618-453-3236
email: NG
webpage

Research Interests

I am a tropical botanist in the broadest sense, with active research projects in ecology, systematics and conservation. Linking these apparently disparate areas is a long-term focus on the seed and seedling stages of the life cycle. My first projects 25 years ago in Panama were community level studies of the earliest stages of forest regeneration after earthquake-caused landslides and the phenology of seed dispersal and germination. I've recently returned to the latter topic by initiating a comparative phenological study in the Ecuador. Crucial to the success of my early projects was learning to identify seedlings, which are very different from adults. Building on this early expertise, I've championed the need to produce seedling identification guides for ecological and conservation work and to incorporate seedling characters into systematic studies and endeavored to fill this need. An interest in soil seed banks has also lead me into systematic work on pioneer species, which make up the bulk of species found in tropical soil. It is difficult to work in tropical forests without contributing toward their conservation, so I've lead conservation projects in both Ecuador and Belize. Most of my recent projects are in collaboration with colleagues in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, are funded by grants that I have written, and have provided research opportunities for students in the UK and Ecuador.

Selected Publications

  1. Queenborough, S. A., D.R.R.P. Burslem, N. C. Garwood and R. Valencia.  2007.  Neighborhood and community interactions determine the spatial pattern of tropical tree seedling survival.  Ecology 88: 2248-2258.
  2. Queenborough, S. A., D.R.R.P. Burslem, N. C. Garwood and R. Valencia. 2007.  Determinants of biased sex ratios and inter-sex costs of reproduction in dioecious tropical forest trees.  American Journal of Botany 94: 67-78.
  3. Queenborough, S. A., D.R.R.P. Burslem, N. C. Garwood and R. Valencia.  2007. Habitat niche partitioning by 16 species of Myristicaceae in Amazonian Ecuador.  Plant Ecology 192:193-207.
  4. Bridgewater, S. G. M, N. C. Garwood, H. DuPlooy, H. Porter Morgan and N. Wicks. 2007.  Belize’s Chamaedorea conundrum. Palms 51: 187-196.
  5. Daws, M. I., S. Bolton, D. F.R.P. Burslem, N. C. Garwood and C. E. Mullins.  2007. Loss of desiccation tolerance during germination in neo-tropical pioneer seeds: implications for seed mortality and germination characteristics.  Seed Science Research 17: 273-281.
  6. Bridgewater, S., P. Pickles, N. Garwood, M. Penn, R. Bateman, H. Porter Morgan, N. Wicks, and N. Bol. 2006. Chamaedorea (xaté) in the Chiquibul Forest, Belize: An economic assessment of a Non-Timber Forest Product.  Economic Botany 60: 265-283.
  7. Daws, M.I., N. C. Garwood and H. W. Pritchard.  2006.  Identifying species with desiccation sensitive seeds: a predictive model for woody species based on two seed traits.  Annals of Botany 97: 667-674.
  8. Thomas, M. M., N. C. Garwood, W. J. Baker, S. Henderson, S. J. Russell, D. R. Hodel, and R. M. Bateman.  2006.  Molecular phylogeny of the palm genus Chamaedorea, based on the low-copy nuclear genes PRK and RPB2.  Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 38: 398-415.
  9. Daws, M.I., N. C. Garwood, &. H. W. Pritchard. 2005.  Traits of recalcitrant seeds in a semi-deciduous tropical forest in Panama: some ecological implications.  Functional Ecology 19: 874-885.
  10. Pujol, B., G. Mühle, N. C. Garwood, Y. Horoszowski, E. J. P. Douzery, and D. McKey. 2005.  Evolution under domestication: contrasting functional morphology of seedlings in domesticated cassava and its closest wild relatives. New Phytologist 166: 305-318.

SIUC / College of Science / Plant Biology
URL: http://www.science.siu.edu/plant-biology/BioPages/Garwood.bio.html
Last updated: 24-Nov-08 / dln