Lab director / Plant Ecophysiologist

Hultine’s expertise involves studying how plants cope with environmental stress in desert ecosystems in urban, riparian and upland areas. He is focused on the duel effects of drought and thermal stress on plants and ecosystems in dryland regions worldwide. He applies stable isotope methods, measurements in plant water relations and measurements of plant carbon allocation and storage to improve the understanding of how desert plant systems function at multiple scales.

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=04hEUKIAAAAJ&hl=en

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9747-6037

khultine@dbg.org | phone: 480.481.8195

ASU, SESE Exploration Postdoctoral Fellow

Aparecido is a Brazilian plant ecologist interested in assessing how functional biology traits drive plant development under various environmental stressors. Her work emphasis is on how plants respond to environmental and physical disturbances (i.e., climate and land use changes). Aparecido has experience  in various Neotropical sites in North-American savannas, hardwood forests, scrubland, loblolly-oak stands and the Sonoran Desert.

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luiza_Maria_Aparecido

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SclpN3wAAAAJ&hl

lmtaparecido@gmail.com

BS Conservation Biology & Ecology, Arizona State University (In progress)

Caspeta is a bilingual Hispanic/Latinx student interested in desert plant conservation. She is currently working on a project for her honors thesis that investigates the correlation between xylem anatomy, stem morphology and water-use strategies of giant cactus native to the Sonoran Desert.

iscaspet@asu.edu

Plant Functional & Physiological Ecology Research Assistant

PhD. Biology, Arizona State University/Desert Botanical Garden (In progress)

Melkonoff’s work is focused on the interactions between plants and animals and how the physiological processes of both impact their interdependence on one another and their ability to thrive under different environmental stressors. She is currently working on her Ph.D. with a focus on the interactions between milkweed, monarch butterflies and pollinators in the Sonoran Desert. She also coordinates Desert Botanical Garden’s monarch and pollinator conservation initiative, Great Milkweed Grow Out.

nmelkonoff@dbg.org | 480.941.3516

M.S. Plant Biology and Conservation, Arizona State University (In progress)

Moran’s background is in plant ecology/conservation and environmental education. Moran’s research interests include how plants physically respond to environmental stress, the implications of those responses within their ecosystem and finding community-based solutions to conservation issues. Currently, she is working on her masters about how the thermal tolerance of cottonwood leaves differs in varying climate conditions and how increasing temperatures might alter the efficacy of photosynthesis in these trees.

memoran3@asu.edu

Ali manages the plant physiology and molecular labs. Where she works with the traits and function of traits in desert and arid riparian plants, along with the genomics and phylogenies of agave, cactus and other desert plants. One of her personal research interests is on dark septate endophytic fungi and how they influence plants in desert and riparian systems, where these fungi are potentially aiding plant growth regulator production, nutrient and water uptake and other positive plant growth responses.  

Bush is a global change ecologist whose research has largely focused on fluxes of carbon and water in both urban and natural ecosystems. Her research effort has spanned scales from leaf-level gas exchange and xylem vascular hydraulics of individual plants to landscape scale investigations of water and carbon exchange with the atmosphere as impacted by anthropogenic factors (urbanization, invasive species, and climate change).

Google Scholar Profile