Contact

Diane Wagner

dwagner10@alaska.edu

https://sites.google.com/alaska.edu/diane-wagner/home

Welcome to our module! I am a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a researcher who specializes in insect-plant interactions. I’ve studied the relationship between quaking aspen trees and the aspen leaf miner since around 2002, just after the onset of a widespread and long lasting outbreak of the insect in Alaska. It is unusual for an insect outbreak to last as long as this one has, and one aspect of my collaborative research is to understand why and how aspen leaf miner populations have remained high for so long. Another is to better understand the implications of damage caused by the insect on the growth and mortality of this ecologically-important tree species. I hope students will enjoy learning about the complex effects of herbivory, and about leaf function in general, in this educational module.

Denise Kind

dmkind@alaska.edu

I’m an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I teach parts 1 and 2 of our introductory biology sequence for science majors every semester. I also teach in the Science Teaching and Outreach program, a graduate program that focuses on implementation of research-based course design and educational methods.  My research focused on plant-animal and plant-pathogen interactions and the evolution of resistance and tolerance in plant populations.