James McGraw
Professor
Contact Information
Department of Biology
Life Sciences Building
53 Campus Drive
Morgantown, WV 26506-6040
Phone: (304) 293-0798
E-mail: jmcgraw@wvu.edu
Research Interests
Plant Population Biology, Ecological Genetics, Conservation Biology
Our lab uses complementary observational and experimental studies to understand how regional and global environmental changes affect ecology and evolution in natural plant populations. Our primary model system is American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), an iconic Appalachian plant that is harvested from the wild for the Asian traditional medicine market. Using this system, we are studying a diverse set of issues, including climate change, invasive species, overbrowsing by white-tailed deer, harvest, dispersal, and landscape level processes such as timbering, fire, mountaintop removal and suburbanization.
Since 1998, we have amassed a unique, broad scale, continuously collected core demographic data set on 30 populations of ginseng, forming the basis of many of these studies (Figure below). Numerous opportunities for population modeling and future field studies are available.
Our interest in global change has also stimulated a return to the Alaskan tundra, where we are re-examining two 30 y old reciprocal transplant gardens in the newly warmed arctic summers.