Jess Zimmerman

Education

Research

Areas

My primary research interests are in the impact of hurricanes and humans, and their interaction, on the dynamics of tropical tree communities.  I am also interested in seasonal and long-term changes tropical forest reproduction.   I am now working on linkages between socioeconomic factors and forest dynamics in rural and urban environments.

Recent

Publications

Zimmerman, J.K., L. S. Comita, M. Uriarte, N. Brokaw, and J. Thompson. 2010. Patch dynamics and community metastability of a tropical forest: Compound effects of natural disturbance and human land use. Landscape Ecology 25:1099-1111. 

Uriarte, M., C.D. Canham, J. Thompson, J.K. Zimmerman, L. Murphy, A.M. Sabat, N. Fetcher, and B.L. Haines. 2009. Understanding natural disturbance and human land use as determinants of tree community dynamics in subtropical wet forest: results from a forest simulator.  Ecological Monographs 79:432-444.

Zimmerman, J.K., J. Thompson, and N. Brokaw. 2008. Large tropical forest dynamics plots: Testing explanations for the maintenance of species diversity.  Pages 98-117 in Carson, W and S. Schnitzer (eds.), Tropical Forest Community Ecology. Blackwell Publications, Blackwell, Oxford.

Zimmerman, J.K., S.J. Wright, O. Calderón, M. Aponte Pagán, and S. Paton. 2007. Flowering and fruiting phenologies of seasonal and aseasonal neotropical forests: the role of annual changes in irradiance. Journal of Tropical Ecology 23:231-251.

Grau H.R., T. M. Aide, J. K. Zimmerman, J.R. Thomlinson, E. Helmer, and X. Zou. 2003. The ecological consequences of socioeconomic and land use changes in postagriculture Puerto Rico. BioScience 53:1159-1168.

See more publications of ITES Faculty

Courses

CIAM 6116.  Tropical Ecosystems

Study of the characteristic ecosystems of island and tropical regions and their spatial distribution.  The interactions among different biotic and abiotic components within these ecosystems, as well as the impact of natural processes and human activities on them are examined in a systematic manner using examples from the literature.

BIOL 6115.  Communities and Ecosystems

A survey of current concepts in the origin and maintenance of species diversity, trophic interactions, and conservation and management of tropical forests and other ecosystems.

BIOL 6996.  Analysis of Ecological Communities

A methods course for the analysis of data from ecological communities, including diversity measures, cluster analysis, ordination, multivariate experiments, and community phylogenetics.

Research Group

Jimena Forero Montaña

jimefore@yahoo.com

Project: Sustainable timber harvest in secondary forests of Puerto Rico
 

 Ana Carolina Monmany

portugalana@hotmail.com

Project:  Landscape complexity and the nature of parasitoid community robustness
 

Victor Jose Vega Lopez

vivelo189@hotmail.com

Project: Communities of endophytes in cultivated coffee (w/ Paul Bayman)

 

Jose Rivera

yukiyu2@gmail.com

Project:  Bat communities in urban areas of the Río Piedras watershed (ULTRA project

Contact

Information

E-mail: 
jesskz@ites.upr.edu

Office: 
Facundo Bueso Annex-208 (15B)

UPR extension number:
787-764-0000 x 3521, 4227, 4381,

Other telephone numbers:
787-380-3311

Fax number:
787-772-1481