Juliana Catherine Mulroy

Dr. Mulroy

Education:

Ph. D. Botany, (Plant ecology, minor in Forestry) Duke University. 1979. Dissertation: "Contributions to the ecology and biogeography of the Saxifraga cespitosa L. complex in the Americas" (W.D. Billings)

A.M. Botany, Duke University. 1973. Thesis: "Some effects of temperature on growth and photosynthesis of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) seedlings." (B. R. Strain)

B. A. Botany, Pomona College. 1970.

Selected Professional Experience:

Instructor, Assistant, Associate Professor of Biology, Denison University 1977-present

Director of the Denison University Herbarium (DEN) 1977-2001

Director, ACM/GLCA Newberry Library Program in the Humanities 1996-97

Chair-elect, Chair, Past Chair, Section G (Biological Sciences) Steering Committee, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1994-1996

Member-at-Large, Section G (Biological Sciences) Steering Committee, American Association for the Advancement of Science 1990-1994

Editorial Board, Ecology and Ecological Monographs, Ecological Society of America (Book Review Editor, Ecology) 1985-1992

Newsletter Editor, Education Section, Ecological Society of America 1990-1993

Historical Records Committee, Ecological Society of America 2003-Present

School for Field Studies Consortial Advisory Board (Founding Member) 1989-1996

Ohio Biological Survey Advisory Board 1977-1984

Recent Honors and Awards:

Fellow, Ohio Academy of Science (elected 1998)

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (elected 1997)

Fellow, ACM/GLCA Newberry Library Program in the Humanities (1996-1997)

Robert C. Good Fellow, Denison University (1995)

(Previous honors and awards include Botany Prize, Pomona College; Honnold Fellow of the Claremont Colleges; American Association of University Women Predoctoral Fellow)

Recent Science Curriculum Projects:

Advisory Board, WWW Ethics Center for Engineering and Science 1995-present

Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement grant, "Developing Scientific Skills in the Biology Curriculum: Integrating Computer Use into Classroom, Laboratory and Field" 1994-1996

FIPSE Fellow, project at Denison University on use of symbolic logic in science curriculum 1994-1996

Ecological Society of America Awards Committee, subcommittee on education 1996-1997

Five Colleges of Ohio Image Study Group (use of digital images in teaching) 1995-1997

Courses Taught at or through Denison:

January Term/May Term Off-Campus Courses:

Current Research Interests:

Demography of Draba verna. With various Denison students since 1985. Attempting to document relationships among density, size, and fecundity in this winter annual species, and address theoretical questions raised by a seven year study of the same species in Poland.

Use of historical documents to reconstruct past vegetation and land use, especially in Licking County, Ohio.

History of ecology and environmental studies in 20th Century United States, especially the relationship between academic ecology and environmental activism before 1970.  As part of this work I am investigating the impact of the California landscape on 19th century travellers from the east, focusing on memoirs of Margaret Hamer Hecox (California overland pioneer of 1846), but my major focus has been on the role of Paul B.Sears (1891-1990) in the development of academic ecology, environmental studies, and environmental activism before the current environmental movement began.

Role of Plantago ovata as dietary component for desert tortoises and other desert animals. This work is in collaboration with tortoise ecophysiologist Linda C. Zimmerman, and investigates the influence of a hydrophyllic mucilloid in the diet of a desert animal.

Earlier research interests include biogeographical and ecological studies of p??ramo, puna, and subantarctic plants of Northern Hemisphere origin in South America, particularly the Saxifraga cespitosa complex, with field work from the Canadian High Arctic and Alaska throughout the Cordillera to Tierra del Fuego.

Recent Student Senior Research Projects:

Laura Finkes, 2003-2004. Indirect effects of edophytic fungi on the distribution and abundance of spiders in tall fescue. In collaboration with Jenn Rudgers '96 and Prof. Keith Clay at Indiana University.

Amy Zidron, 2002-2003, completed an honors thesis "Influences on the size at maturity on Draba verna L." co-advised with Dr. Paul T. Andreadis. Amy is currently pursuing a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree at Ohio University.

Academic year 2001-2002. Michael Becher continued the work of Amanda Fuller '95 in mapping the presettlement vegetation of Licking County, Ohio. Mike filled in gaps of missing historical data on the presettlement vegetation and developed a GIS database of the 1799-1802 county survey information. Mike is currently working with the Stream Partners program in the West Virginia Department of Enviromental Protection.

Academic year 1999-2000: Sarah Emery '00 refined image analysis techniques for use in plant population studies, and developed experimental populations to test effects of competition in Draba verna ("Neighborhood Studies Using Draba verna L. (Brassicaceae): Image Analysis and Common Garden Experiments").  Sarah's initial work was published in the Denison Journal of Biological Science and she was lead author on a poster presented at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, August 2000 and co-author of a presentation at the Ecological Society Annual Meetings in August,. Sarah is a PhD student in plant ecology at Michigan State University and Kellogg Biological Station. Lisa Neylan '00, a double major in Spanish and Biology, wrote a thesis in Spanish on conservation issues in Latin America, based on field work she conducted the previous year in Venezuela ("Los parques nacionales y sus residentes: incompatibles? El caso del Parque Nacional Henri Pittier.")The thesis was co-advised with Prof. Eduardo Jaramillo in Modern Languages with significant input from her third reader, Carol Goland, ENVS. Lisa was a biological staff member at Forfar Field Station, Andros Island, Bahamas and studied in Brazil on a Rotary scholarship. She is currently studing to become an environmental educator. Jillian Hodgen '00 continued Kara Miller's work on a flora of the Denison University Biological Reserve, with a special focus on invasive species, and then assisted Jenn Rudgers '96 in her dissertation research at the Santa Rita Experimental Range in the mountains of southern Arizona. She currently is a biological research assistant at the University of California, Davis.

Academic year 1998-1999. "Flora and Vegetational History of the Denison University Biological Reserve, Licking County, Ohio" Kara E. Miller '99.  Kara has a paper in the Fall, 1998 Denison Journal of BiologicalScience and an abstract in the Ohio Journal of Science for work presented at the Ohio Academy of Sciences April 1999 annual meeting on this research. Her work includes preparation of the first species list of Angiosperms for the Reserve as well as a compilation of information on land use history of different areas of the reserve. She worked with previous faculty and student collections, her own collections from the summer of 1998, and theLicking County Collection established by Harry V. Truman in the Denison University Herbarium. Kara has completed a master's degree in plant ecology at Miami University of Ohio and is working as a field ecologist for an environmental consulting firm in Illinois.

Academic year 1997-1998. "The foraging ecology of free-ranging captive bactrian wapiti and reticulated giraffe at the Wilds conservation facility in Cumberland, Ohio." Krista Wenning '98. Honors thesis (co-advisor; principal advisor L. C. Zimmerman, Biology). Krista presented this work at the Ohio Academy of Sciences meeting in April, 1998; her summer 1997 research on this subject was published in the Fall 1997 Denison Journal of Biological Science. Krista has completed a M.S. at Utah State University in wildlife ecology and continues as a researcher there.

Academic year 1996-1997. Coadvised 14 semester long archival research projects as part of teaching the 16 credit seminar "Landscape and Culture" at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The four Denison student projects include Ben Sutherly '97 "Rooted in rural life: The storied landscape of Elizabeth Township, Ohio"; Simone Poindexter '97 "Sweet Home: The landscape of slavery and its influence on the shaping of slave culture and identity"; Colin Bossen '98 "Labor, land and industry: Carl Sandburg as a radical environmentalist"; Kristen Kordet '99 "Riverside and Pullman: A tale of two planned communities." Essays adapted from the 14 projects were published in Rethinking Landscape: Essays from the 1996 ACM/GLCA Newberry Library Program in the Humanities Fall Seminar "Landscape and Culture. Other projects included "Disturbing the Land: Dakota hegemony in a dynamic Indian landscape," The Great Northern Railroad and Glacier National Park: Myth and identity in an American landscape," "The Great Conflagratio: The London fire of 1666 and the myth of British identity," "Landscape and nationalism: Richard Hakluyt's perceptions and promotions of sixteenth century America," "The landscape of industry: Changes in the concept of English travel literature during 1790-1850," "Infinite riches in a small room: Christopher Marlowe and the conception of the dramatic landscape," ""Bughouse Square and the Dill Pickle Club: A convergence of Chicago Communities, 1916-1932," "The landscape of American hymnody, 1850-1875," The landscape of sexuality in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, " "The garden as mediator in Willa Cather's fiction." All projects, and the collection of essays, are available in Special Collections, Newberry Library.

"Population dynamics of the winter annual weed Draba verna L." Jennifer A. Rudgers '96, IDM Environmental Science Honors thesis 1995-1996. Presented as co-authored poster at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, 1996. Jennifer published several articles on other research completed during her undergraduate years at Denison in the Denison Journal of Biological Science. She completed a PhD at the University of California, Davis, studying plant ecology and population biology, and is currently doing post-doctoral work at Indiana University.

"The vegetation of Licking County, Ohio at the time of European settlement." (Amanda B. Fuller '95, IDM Environmental Science Honors thesis, co-advised with Tod Frolking. 1994-95.) Her summer undergraduate research was published in the Denison Journal of Biological Science. Amanda is pursuing graduate work in restoration ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

Previous senior research projects have ranged from examination of effects of tillage on weed seed populations ("Seed bank variation in agricultural soils: methodological considerations and a comparison of the effects of tillage and fertilizer on number, kinds, and depth distribution of weed seeds") by Richard Kobe '88, now Associate Professor of plant ecology at Michigan State University) to the use of the herbarium in environmental education (Rob Bevill, an environmental educator who completed a master's in conservation biology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln).  Paul Foster '87, now a graduate student in evolutionary plant ecology at the University of Michigan, compared seed characteristics of native and adventive members of the Ohio flora, resulting in a computerized database of the flowering plants of Ohio used by subsequent students to examine related questions.  I am particularly interested in advising projects involving local plant ecology and floristics, historical ecology, ethnobotany, and history of ecology.

Abstracts of Recent Presentations:

2004. "Paul Sears: The making of an ecologist". Invited presentation in symposium "The Conservation Legacy at Yale: Aldo Leopold's ecological Vision and Paul Sears' Leadership of the Yale Conservation Program". Yale University, May 15.

2004. Biological diversity and revegetation where human disturbances or inhabited landscapes meet wildlands. Presentation at Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, August 5. With Thomas W. Mulroy

2002. A GIS map of Licking County, Ohio: Vegetation at the time of the earliest government land surveys. Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Tucson, AZ. (with J Michael Becher '02 and Amanda Fuller '95)

2001. The role of intraspecific competition in size and fecundity variation in Draba verna L." Oral  presentation at the Annual Meeting of Ecological Society of America, Madison WI Aug 2001. With Sarah Emery '00.

2001. Neighborhood analysis of competitive interactions in Draba verna: the use of image analysis and common gardens. Abstracts of the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting. (with Sarah Emery '00 and Jennifer A. Rudgers '96).

2000. Image analysis as a tool for plant population studies. Ohio Jour. Sci. (with Sarah Emery '00 and Jennifer A. Rudgers '96).

1997. The desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) and the desert plantain (Plantago ovata): potential effects of a hydrophilic mucilloid on nutritional, hydric and energetic balance in a desert-dwelling herbivorous ectotherm. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting; with Linda C. Zimmerman (Biology faculty member) and Jennifer Voelker DU `97)

1996. Use of image analysis in plant demography: population dynamics of a rosette-forming winter annual weed. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting; with Jennifer A. Rudgers DU `96)

1995. The origins of palynology in North America. Am. J. Bot. 86(2): 77.

1995. Using notebook computers in ecology instruction: a progress report. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer.76(2).

1995. Plant Ecologists in 20th Century U.S. Conservation/Environmental Movements: The Case of Paul B. Sears. Proceedings of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology Annual Meeting, Leuven, Belgium.

1995. From the Mud of Lake Okoboji to the Peat of the Dismal Swamp: The Origins of Palynology in North America. Ohio Jour. Sci. 95(2): A-24

1995. Ohio's Role in the National Conservation Organization Friends of the Land (1940-1959) Ohio Jour. Sci. 95(2): A-24 (with Jennifer A. Rudgers and John B. Kirby).