Julie Combs
jkcombs@u.washington.edu

Education

B.S. UC Davis Environmental Biology & Management, Emphasis in Botany (1994)
M.S. University of Washington, College of Forest Resources (2005)
Ph.D. Candidate College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle

Honors

NSF IGERT Fellow
Native Plant Society Scholarship
College of Forest Resources Scholarship
Chinook Garden Fellow

International Research

I am engaged in an interdisciplinary, collaborative study in Jiuzhaigou National Park, China.  Research partners include park staff at Jiuzhaigou, students and professors from Sichuan University and the University of Washington.  Jiuzhaigou National Park is located in NE Sichuan Province of China and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Jiuzhaigou means “Valley of Nine Villages”, referring to the existing Tibetan villages within the park boundaries. Our research team takes a synthetic approach to examine how historic and current human activities affect the distribution of plants and animals within the park and examine how long people have inhabited the Jiuzhai valley area.  Knowledge is gained through a suite of disciplines i.e., ecology, archeology, anthropology and geology as well as local or indigenous knowledge.


Research

I am broadly interested in questions and problems in the fields of plant ecology, plant-insect ecology (pollination and herbivory) and conservation biology. Specifically, I am investigating how herbivory and pollination and interaction between the two affect reproductive failure (seed loss) and success in rare-common sympatric, congeneric pairs. 


Publications

Combs, J.K. 2005. M.S. Thesis. UW, Seattle.  Astragalus sinuatus (Piper), a Washington State Endangered Plant Species:  Pre-dispersal Seed Predation, Seedling Recruitment and Interactions with Bromus tectorum L.

Maron, J.L., J.K Combs, S.M. Louda. 2002. Convergent demographic effects of insect attack on related thistles in coastal vs. continental dune. Ecology 83:3382-3392

Presented Talks at Conferences

Factors that affect the fitness and survival of the rare plant, Astragalus sinuatus Piper. Ecological Society of America. Oral presentation (2006)

Pre-dispersal insect herbivores lower seed production of Astragalus sinuatus, a Washington State endangered plant species. Northwest Scientific Association, Oral presentation (2004)