Steven Augustine
Assistant Professor
Education:
Ph.D., Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2023
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Minnesota, 2023-24
Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard University, 2024-25
Started at UCA in 2025
Courses Taught:
General Ecology
Research Interests:
My research focuses on understanding the processes underpinning the diversity within and distribution of plant communities. I accomplish this by integrating across scales, from the molecular up to the ecosystem, and across fields, tying together functional, physiological, evolutionary, and remotely sensed data. More recently my work has focused on: 1) evaluating genotypic variations in physiology to identify local adaptation and predict how species will respond to changing climates, 2) the effects of functional and phylogenetic diversity on forest function in Eastern North America, and 3) scaling physiological mechanisms to spectral information to monitor the spread of forest pathogens.
Lab Webpage:
Selected Publications:
Augustine SP, McCulloh KA. 2024. Physiological trait coordination and variability across and within three Pinus species. New Phytologist. doi: 10.1111/nph.19859.
Augustine SP, Bailey-Marren I, Charton KT, Kiel NG, Peyton MS. 2024. Improper data practices erode the quality of global ecological databases and impede the progress of ecological research. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb.17116.
McCulloh KA, Augustine SP, Goke A, Jordan R, Krieg CP, O’Keefe K, Smith DD. 2023. At least it’s a dry cold: the global distribution of freeze-thaw and drought stress and the hydraulic traits that may impart polytolerance in conifers. Tree Physiology. doi: 10.1093/treephys/tpac102.