Joy Ward

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
Associate Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
I am interested in understanding how global change factors influence the physiology, population structure, and evolution of plants. My laboratory group focuses on the effects of global change factors that alter plant resource availability, such as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, changing precipitation regimes, and increasing temperatures. In addition to studying how global changes affect the population structure of future plants, we are also investigating how plants have responded to past global changes, such as during ice ages. The tools that we use span from those used in ecosystem ecology to modern molecular biology, and include both laboratory and field approaches. Furthermore, we also apply stable isotope techniques in order to make long-term linkages between resource-use by plants and climate.

HOME PAGE
http://web.ku.edu/~jwardlab/joyhome.shtml