• PBIO 109 Americans and their Forests
• PBIO 435/535 Plant Population Biology
• PBIO 322/522 Tropical Ecology
• PBIO 485/693 Tropical Forest Ecology (Sarawak)
   

Global Studies 2007: Sarawak

• Awards Committee, Chair
• Curriculum Committee

The spatial and temporal structure of habitat strongly influences the distribution, abundance, and reproductive success of plants. For example, the patchy distribution of forest, agriculture, and suburbs can influence the patterns of invasion by exotic species, regeneration of native species following disturbance, epidemic spread of pathogens, and responses of herb species to human disturbance. The deciduous forests of southern Ohio provide an ideal laboratory to examine these processes. I work primarily with forest herbs (we have a world-class wildflower community), but also with deciduous tree species, invasive exotics, and soil-dwelling invertebrates. Much of this work is directed to forest conservation and management.

I enjoy working with research students, and welcome inquiries from interested undergraduates and graduates.

• Glasgow, L.S. and G.R. Matlack. 2007. The effects of prescribed burning and canopy openness on establishment of two non-native plant species in a deciduous forest, southeast Ohio, USA.  Forest Ecology and Management, in press.
• Matlack, G.R. and R. McEwan. 2007. Forest in my neighborhood: Using personal experience to engage students in land use history.  American Biology Teacher, in press.
• Glasgow, L.S. and G.R. Matlack. 2007. Prescribed burning and understory  composition in a temperate deciduous forest, Ohio, USA.  Forest Ecology and Management, in press.
• Harrelson, S.M. and G.R. Matlack. 2006. Influence of stand age and physical environment on the herb composition of second-growth forest, Strouds Run, Ohio, USA.  Journal of Biogeography, 33: 1139-1149.
• Christen, D. and G.R. Matlack. 2006. Do invasive plant species use roadsides as conduits, or just habitat?  A demographic approach.  Conservation Biology, 20: 385-391.
• G.R. Matlack. 2005. Slow plants in a fast forest: Local dispersal as a predictor of species frequencies in a dynamic landscape. Journal of Ecology 93: 50-59.
• G.R. Matlack and J.Monde. 2004. Consequences of low mobility in spatially and temporally heterogeneous ecosystems.  Journal of Ecology 92: 1025-1035. 
• C.W. Thornton and G.R. Matlack. 2003. Disturbance effects in the soil nematode community inferred from a 60-year chronosequence. Journal of Nematology
• T.E. Perkins and G.R. Matlack.  2002.  Human-generated pattern in commercial forests of southern Mississippi and consequences for the spread of pests and pathogens. Forest Ecology and Management 157: 143-154.

Faculty Research Focus Area

Recent Student Research Projects

• Interactions of plant mobility, habitat turnover, and habitat spatial structure (modelling).
• Long-term impacts of land use in forests of SE Ohio
• Watershed dynamics: the role of hydrology as an integrating factor in human-shaped landscapes
• Plant invasions as a community assembly process
• Interactions of clonal growth and local environmental heterogeneity