The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Sevyn Brothers will present Master's research titled, Democratizing Plant Biodiversity Data with Coefficients of Conservatism for the Vascular Flora of Tennessee and Kentucky on 10/04/2024 at 2:00pm EST in Holt 112. Everyone is invited to attend. 

Environmental Science

Chair: Joey Shaw

Co-Chair: 

Abstract:

Floristic Quality Assessments (FQAs) measure an ecosystems’ quality and can be applied to any ecosystem. FQAs consist of two parts: a species checklist and each species’ coefficient of conservatism (c-value). C-values are integers that describe a species’ tolerance to anthropogenically disturbed habitats. C-values should be applied to species per ecoregion; however, this can be difficult due to resource allocations, and therefore it is more common to apply c-values at the state level. Tennessee and Kentucky (TNKY) shared many native species and ecoregions and lacked published c-values, putting TNKY in a prime position for c-value assignment. C-values were assigned to TNKY’s combined flora while utilizing as much pre-existing data as possible. Overall, c-values were successfully applied to 97% of TNKY’s flora (3,295 species). The c-values were then used to create educational modules to democratize biodiversity data. These were made publicly available and sent to nearby schools to further democratize biodiversity data and comprehension.