Education and Training

1989 BA University of Massachusetts at Amherst

1997 PhD State University of New York at Stony Brook

1997-2000 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV.

Research Interests

My research examines the physiological factors that cause plant species to have different natural distributions with respect to such environmental factors as soil fertility, water availability and temperature. My major focus is on understanding how biochemical differences among grass species in the mechanisms by which they accomplish photosynthesis (NAD-ME vs. NADP-ME C4 photosynthesis) translate into different whole-plant responses to temperature, nitrogen and water.

Teaching Interests

As a teacher I aim to:

Improve students' understanding of the structure, functioning, life histories and diversity of organisms.

Develop their ability to read carefully, to think clearly and logically, to analyze and assess information and to synthesize information from a variety of sources.

Develop students' personal perception of the living environment that surrounds them.

Develop their ability to communicate clearly in writing.

Courses

Biology of Food

Botany

Classical and Population Genetics

Global Change Biology

Recent Student Research Projects

2004 Mountain Cedar Project. Carrie Miller.

2003 Growth of NAD-ME and NADP-ME C4 Grasses Across an Experimental Nitrogen Gradient in Monoculture and in Competition. Sean O'Brien and Cheryl Keelin.

2002 Optimization of an assay for NADP malic enzyme activity in leaves of C4 plant species. Baker King.

2002- Optimization of an assay for NAD malic enzyme activity in leaves of C4 plant species. Heather Yoder.

2002 Land use, cedar tree invasion and plant species diversity on the Edward's Plateau, Texas.- Cheryl Keelin (Internship with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department).

2001 Fluctuating asymmetry as a measure of ozone stress in Quercus virginiana and Sapium sebiferum. Joshua Giovannetti.

Selected Publications

Taub, D.R. (2004). A Meta-analysis of Studies on Plant Growth Rate and Allocation to Roots vs. Shoots. Brown Working Papers in the Arts and Sciences, Southwestern University, Vol 4:1.

Taub, D.R. (2002) Analysis of interspecific variation in plant growth responses to nitrogen. Canadian Journal of Botany, 80: 34-41.

Taub, D.R., Seemann, J.R. and Coleman, J.S. (2000). Growth in elevated CO2 protects photosynthesis against high temperature damage. Plant, Cell and Environment, 23: 649-656.

Taub, D.R. (2000) Climate and the U.S. distribution of C4 grass subfamilies and decarboxylation variants of C4 photosynthesis. American Journal of Botany, 87: 1211-1215.

Taub, Daniel R. and Lerdau, Manuel (2000). Relationship between leaf nitrogen and photosynthetic rate for three NAD-ME and three NADP-ME C4 grasses. American Journal of Botany, 87: 412-417

More Information

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CONTACT:
Department of Biology
Southwestern University
P.O. Box 770
Georgetown, TX 78627