Meg Armistead, C'14 (Ecology and Biodiversity major), presented a talk Feb. 26 to the 36th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Deer Study Group in Greenville, SC, entitled "Spatial assessment of deer browse and its effects on a forest community in SE Tennessee." The talk reviewed the research she has been conducting this past year with advisor Dr. Jon Evans examining the impacts of deer browse across the Domain.
Armistead's research with Evans last summer involved sampling more than 40 plots across 2,300 acres of the Domain. She showed that sapling density can serve as a highly sensitive metric for assessing deer browse within the upland oak-hickory forest. Working with Dr. Chris Van de Ven in the Landscape Analysis Laboratory, she also used her data to create interpolated maps of deer browse to examine the heterogeneity of deer browse across a large spatial area. Armistead was one of the few undergraduates to speak at this professional wildlife conference and her work was well received.