Dr. Reed Noss brings more than 45 years of distinguished experience and expertise to Biodiversity Unlimited as a Senior Consultant. Dr. Noss also directs the SPICE (Science and Planning In Conservation Ecology) lab at the University of Central Florida, which concentrates on basic and applied problems in biodiversity conservation. Research topics addressed by Dr. Noss and his students and collaborators include the autecology of imperiled vertebrate species (e.g., habitat relationships, demography, dispersal ecology, population viability); the protection, restoration, and management of ecosystems (from plant communities to regional landscapes); ecological indicators, monitoring, and adaptive management; multicriteria conservation planning; and the planning and management of the wildland-urban interface. Current projects include field studies and population modeling of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, Florida scrub-jay, and Big Cypress fox squirrel; research on the impacts of roads on wildlife and the design of wildlife crossings and other mitigation; studies of fire ecology, restoration, and conservation of western and boreal forests; ecology of amphibians and birds in isolated southeastern wetlands; and regional conservation planning (e.g. in the Great Sand Hills of Saskatchewan and the Dry Prairie of south-central Florida).

 

       Dr. Noss is also Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor, Pegasus Professor, and Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Central Florida and President of the Florida Institute for Conservation Science. He has a B.S. in Education from the University of Dayton, an M.S. in Ecology from the University of Tennessee, and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Florida. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of Conservation Biology (1993-1997), President of the Society for Conservation Biology (1999-2001), and President of the North American Section of the Society (2006-2008). He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on many boards and advisory panels, including the Board of Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology, the Board of Trustees of the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and Florida’s Acquisition and Restoration Council. He recently served as Vice-Chair of a Federal Advisory Committee for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

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       Dr. Noss has more than 300 publications and is recognized as one of the 500 most highly cited authors in all fields worldwide. He has published seven books, the most recent being Forgotten Grasslands of the South: Natural History and Conservation (2013, Island Press). He is currently writing books on the fire ecology of Florida and the lower Southeastern Coastal Plain (University Press of Florida) and on natural disturbance as a primary factor that structures ecosystems (Island Press).