Background, Research Interests, and Current Projects:
An internship with a consulting group opened the doors for Nathan to research and ecology while studying as an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis . The first projects on which Nathan worked concerned oak establishment and vegetation response in disturbed riparian areas. Other research projects with which he assisted addressed historical soil and ground water data for the greater Sacramento area.
For the past few years Nathan has participated seasonally in a variety of studies for the research division of the Forest Service out of Reno, Nevada. These studies have examined fire history, methods for controlling woodland expansion, the effects of late frost needle kill as an alternative disturbance, and plant community distributions along aspect and elevational gradients in the Great Basin.
Now Nathan finds himself in a Master of Science program at the Universty of Nevada, Reno under the guidance of Dr. Peter J. Weisberg. His thesis will focus on long term plant succession in response to prescribed treatments of woodland expansion. The study sites are scattered across eastern Nevada and have each undergone between forty and sixty years of succession following either prescribed fire or mechanical tree and shrub removal by chaining. |
