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photo Matthew D. Potts
Assistant Professor
email
233 Cox Science Center, Dept. of Biology
1301 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124

phone (305) 284-3954
fax (305) 284-3039
laboratory website



  
 
Education and professional experience
  • Harvard University, Ph.D. 2001 (Applied Mathematics)
  • Harvard University, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 9/2001-9/2002
  • University of California, San Diego, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 10/2002-8/2005
  • Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, Visiting Fellow, 10/2003-10/2004         
Grants and Awards
  • Conservation of Biological Diversity through Improved Forest Planning Tools,PI, GEF/ITTO, $524,720, 3/07-2/12
  • Grouping Species into Functional Types and Characterizing Species Allometric Relationships in the Pasoh Forest to aid in the Parameterization of the FORMIND Model,” PI, Center for Tropical Forest Science, $9,961, 1/06-1/08
  • NSF, Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics, 10/02-8/05
Areas of Focus
  • conservation and restoration ecology
  • mathematical and theoretical biology
  • tropical biology
Research Interests
My research interests are the maintenance of high tropical tree diversity, the design of biological reserves, and the spatial aspects of resource management and epidemiology. I am also interested in how human actions, values, and ethics affect biodiversity conservation. Focal study areas include the sustainable management of tropical forests and the control of vector born diseases in urban environments.  I tackle my research using a multitude of approaches including theoretical models and empirical field based studies.  The work involves close collaboration with anthropologists, economists, geographers, ecologists, epidemiologists, and mathematicians.
Teaching Interests
My teaching interest are as varied as my research interest.  I regularly teach undergraduate general ecology and introduction to environmental science.  In addition, I am developing a course on the management of renewable resources and control of infectious diseases in a spatial context. In all my courses, I strive to train my students to be critical thinkers and quantitative problem solvers.  
Publications since 2000
  • Potts, M.D. and J.R. Vincent. In press. Harvesting and Extinction in Multi-Species Communities. Ecological Economics.
  • Potts, M.D. and J.R. Vincent. In press. Spatial Distribution of Species Populations, Relative Economic Values, and the Optimal Size and Number of Reserves. Environmental and Resource Economics.
  • Muchhala, N. and M.D Potts. 2007. Character displacement among bat-pollinated flowers of the genus Burmeistera : analysis of mechanism, process and pattern. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science 474:2731-2737.
  • Russo, S.E., Potts, M.D., Davies, S.J., and S.Tan. 2007. Determinants of tree species distributions: Comparing the roles of dispersal, seed size, and soil specialization in a Bornean rain forest. In: (eds Dennis, A., Schupp, E.W., Green, R. & Wescott, D.) Seed Dispersal: Theory and its Application in a Changing World. CAB International, New York.
  • Potts, M.D., A.R. Kassim, M.N. Nur Supardi, S. Tan, and W.H. Bossert. 2005. Sampling tree diversity in Malaysian tropical forests: an evaluation of a pre-felling inventory. Forest Ecology and Management 205:385-395.
  • Davies, S.J., S. Tan, J.V. LaFrankie and M.D. Potts. 2005. Soil-related floristic variation in the hyperdiverse dipterocarp forest in Lambir Hills, Sarawak. In: D. Roubik, S. Sakai, and A.A. Hamid Karim (Eds.) Pollination Ecology and the Rain Forest (Sarawak Studies) Chapter 3, pp. 22-34. Springer, New York.
  • Vincent, J. V. and M. D. Potts. 2004. Nonlinearities, biodiveristy conservation, and sustainable forest management. In Kant and Berry (eds.) Sustainability, Economics, and Natural Resources, Economics of Sustainable Forest Management: 207-222. Springer, Netherlands.
  • Potts, M.D., S.J. Davies, W.H. Bossert, S. Tan, and M.N. Nur Supardi. 2004. Habitat Heterogeneity and Niche Structure of Trees in Two Tropical Rain Forests. Oecologia 129:446-474.
  • Potts, M.D. 2003. Drought effects in a Bornean everwet rainforest. Journal of Ecology 91:467-474.
  • Potts, M.D., P.S. Ashton, J.B. Plotkin, and L.S. Kaufman 2002. Habitat patterns in tropical rainforests: a comparison of 105 plots in Northwest Borneo. Ecology 83: 2782-2797.
  • Potts, M.D., J.B. Plotkin, H.S. Lee, N. Manokaran, P.S. Ashton, and W.H. Bossert. 2001. Sampling Biodiversity: Effects of Plot Shape. The Malaysian Forester 64:29-34.
  • Cavender-Bares, J., M. Potts, E. Zacharias, and F. A. Bazzaz. 2000.  Consequences of CO2 and light interactions for leaf phenology, growth, and senescence in Quercus rubra.  Global Change Biology 6: 877-887.  
  • Plotkin, J.B., M.D. Potts, N. Leslie, N. Manokaran, J.V. LaFrankie, and P.S. Ashton. 2000. Species-area curves, spatial aggregation, and habitat specialization in tropical forests. Journal of Theoretical Biology 207: 81-99.
  • Plotkin, J.B., M.D. Potts, D W. Yu, S. Bunyavejchewin, R. Condit, R. Foster, S. Hubbell, J.V. LaFrankie, N. Manokaran, H.L. Seng, R. Sukumar, M.A. Nowak, P.S. Ashton. 2000. Predicting species diversity in tropical forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97:10850-10854.
  • Kubo, T., T. Kohyama, M D. Potts, and P.S. Ashton. 2000. Mortality rate estimation when inter-census intervals vary. Journal of Tropical Ecology 16: 753-756.
 
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