Alex Lowe
Graduate Student | Biology
I am a paleobotanist interested in understanding the ecology of vegetation systems in Earth’s past. I seek to tease out what the important influences on plant communities have been in the past, and how dynamics over long time periods (thousands to millions of years) differ from those studied over observational time scales. I focus my efforts on past warm intervals, including the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (~52 Ma) and the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (~15 Ma). My PhD work, with Dr. Caroline Strömberg, seeks to characterize the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum in the Pacific Northwest, and understand its impact on vegetation. I aim to combine geochemical and paleobotanical techniques to comprehensively characterize these ancient environments and tease out additional influences on plant ecology beyond climate. I joined the PCC to learn more about the dynamics and impacts of climate change and to contribute my knowledge of Earth’s deep past to provide context to the climate and vegetation systems of today.