Dr Lars Markesteijn

Senior Lecturer in Forest Science

Contact info

Thoday Building, room S10

Email: l.markesteijn@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: 01248 382337 (from U.K.)
+44 1248 382337 (International)

 

Google Scholar, ORCID, ResearchGate

 

Tropical forest ecology, Functional ecology, Restoration ecology, Plant-enemy interactions 


 

As a researcher I am foremost fascinated by biodiversity and as such most of my work is carried out in biologically complex tropical forest ecosystems. My research addresses processes underlying function and co-existence of tropical plants and mechanisms of biodiversity generation and maintenance. I take a special interest in density-dependent mortality or negative density dependence (NDD), as mediated by plant natural enemies, and how it affects regeneration dynamics of tropical plants. I further work on physiological plant responses to limiting resources, resource competition, and tolerance to environmental and global change - principally with respect to water and light. I explore the effects of variation in plant functional traits on individual plant performance and species distribution from local to cross-ecosystem scales.

In addition to being a Senior Lecturer in Forest Scsience at the School of Natural Sciences, I am a Distinguished Research Lecturer (Beatriz Galindo Fellow) in the Area of Biodiversity and Conservation at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid (Spain), and an affiliated researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama.

I hold a Ph.D. in Tropical Forest Ecology and an M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Tropical Land Use from Wageningen University (the Netherlands). I worked as a postdoctoral researcher on different projects with STRI and the Universities of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (USA), Oxford (UK), Yale (USA), Oregon State (USA) and Bayreuth (Germany).

  1. Breaking down the effect of biotic and abiotic mechanisms of litter decomposition in drylands

    Author: Fishburn, D., 4 Nov 2019

    Supervisor: Markesteijn, L. (Supervisor) & Rey, A. (External person) (Supervisor)

    Student thesis: Masters by Research

  2. Determining the consequences of forest degradation on mangrove epifauna in South-East Kenya

    Author: Barbanera, A., 24 Feb 2021

    Supervisor: Markesteijn, L. (Supervisor)

    Student thesis: Masters by Research

  3. The role of plant-fungus and plant-insect interactions in the dynamics of secondary and mature tropical rainforests

    Author: Weissflog, A., 22 Aug 2022

    Supervisor: Markesteijn, L. (Supervisor), Healey, J. (Supervisor) & Engelbrecht, B. (External person) (Supervisor)

    Student thesis: Doctor of Philosophy