Achievement

Each cohort of five or more students spend a full-year in a workshop working on a project in conjunction with a client or partnership. Students from each of the interdisciplinary areas (biology, geography, wildlife, math, and statistics, etc.) work together to develop interdisciplinary approaches to the problem. This year represents our third workshop year. This year, the students have been working with the Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service to develop models of invasive species in Florida. They developed several types of models to compare results among them. These models will aid in predicting areas vulnerable to invasion by specific species, guiding future research, and managing areas to reduce invasive species. The students recently presented their research at the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council meeting and met with the clients to discuss their preliminary results and to discuss their continued research.