The University of Tokyo, GPES

Shefferson, Richard

Professor
MS (Univ California, Berkeley) PhD (Univ California, Berkeley)

Demography, Evolutionary ecology, Plant ecology, Conservation

Shefferson Lab

http://www.sheffersonlab.com

cdorm [at] g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Profile

2000 MS Range Management (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

2004 PhD Integrative Biology (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

2004-2007 Post-doctoral fellow (NSF-JSPS, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan)

2007-2008 Post-doctoral scientist (University of Virginia, USA)

2008-2014 Assistant Professor (University of Georgia, USA)

Research Interests

I am an evolutionary ecologist and demographer focused on the evolution of life histories and biological interactions in plants. Broad research themes involve the evolution of senescence, the origins and evolutionary maintenance of specificity and specialization, the adaptive significance of dormancy, and the evolutionary dynamics of symbiosis. Other research themes that I tackle include the conservation of rare plants, population forecasting, and the estimation of demographic parameters in organisms with complex life histories. I typically focus my questions on long-lived herbaceous plants, such as orchids and plantains, and have studied both their long-term adaptive dynamics as well as their mycorrhizal ecology, addressing both microevolutionary processes and macroevolutionary patterns. My work has been applied to conservation management, particularly in developing and assessing management plans for rare herbaceous plant species. Field work spans East Asia, North America and Europe.