Clayton W. Hale
Clayton W. Hale
PhD Candidate
DeMarche Lab
Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia
Understanding the impacts of global change on population and community persistence
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About me
About me
I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the DeMarche Lab at the University of Georgia. I am interested in leveraging population and community ecological and evolutionary research to inform biodiversity conservation and sustainability in a changing world. I received a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville where I studied how multi-species tree plantings can be used to increase biodiversity in forest restoration. I then received a M.S. in Forestry from Mississippi State University where I studied the regeneration potential and developed landscape-level habitat suitability models for three rare and imperiled woody plant species. The goal of my current Ph.D. work is to understand the effects of global change on plant species interactions and how it will affect their phenology, fitness, and population persistence. If I’m not working on my research, you can likely find me exploring the whitewater rivers of the Southeast or on the disc golf course.
Research Themes
Research Themes
Population and Community Responses to Global Change
Population and Community Responses to Global Change
I am interested in understanding how species are impacted and respond to global change. My work in this area primarily focuses on understanding how phenological shifts impact the fitness, demography, and population persistence of various plant species. I answer these questions using a combination of large datasets, such as herbarium and citizen science records, and manipulative field experiments.
Rare Species Conservation and Management
Rare Species Conservation and Management
I work to understand how to better conserve and manage rare and imperiled species. I study how environmental change, disturbance regimes, and species interactions influence population dynamics and population persistence. My research combines field ecology, long-term monitoring, and spatial analysis to inform science-based conservation strategies—particularly for southeastern U.S. endemics like Trillium persistens, Fothergilla milleri, Stewartia ovata, and Chamaecyparis thyoides.
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