Matthew Palmer

Focus: Centimeter-scale distribution patterns in a diverse wetland plant community, conservation biology of globally rare species in the New Jersey Pinelands, the effects of dominant-plant density and productivity on dynamics in an old-field plant community, the flora of New Jersey

Matthew Palmer is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) at Columbia University. He is interested in factors that influence diversity at local scales. Within this broad subject, he has done research on the effects of microtopography and plant interactions on centimeter-scale diversity patterns in fens of the New Jersey Pinelands, on the effects of mutualistic interactions between protists in aquatic microcosms, and on the effects of density and productivity gradients on plant community structure in herbaceous old-fields. He is also interested in the demographic factors which influence population dynamics of endangered plant species.

Education

• PhD, Rutgers University