Stephanie successfully defends masters thesis!

Stephanie gave a seminar and defended her masters thesis titled, “History, dispersal limitation, and environment shape the current and future ranges of forest herbs of the Southern Appalachians”. For her thesis, she developed species distribution models for 8 forest herb species, half of which are narrow endemics to the Southern Appalachians. She examined the extent to which their ranges are limited by opportunity (failure of the range to shift north following glaciation) versus adaptation (failure to adapt to environments north of the range). She also examined how each species’ range may shift or contract with climate change. Congrats Stephanie!