University
of California, Irvine
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
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| Research Interests |
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My major interests are concerned with current losses in biodiversity around the world. In particular, I am interested in threatened and endangered plant species and communities, especially the petalloid monocotyledonous plants. Within this group I have focused attention on temperate geophytes belonging to the families Iridaceae, Liliaceae, and related groups, as well as tropical epiphytic families such as the Orchidaceae. My research interests are aimed at understanding and predicting rates of plant extinction and devising methods of combating these problems. As an adjunct to this we have become concerned with factors that underly reproductive success or lack thereof in rare plants. As well as the way populations of plants are distributed geographically. While loss of biodiversity is recognized as a major conservation problem, there is little information on actual extinction rates. One current project involves modeling extinction rates using land conversion rates and plant distributions that will enable one to predict rates of species loss for particular areas and/or groups of plants. Much of this uses data of orchid species distributions as well as other neotropical floras. Although basically global in perspective, much of my field work has been performed in Africa. For several years I have been studing reproductive costs in a Zimbabwean orchid Aerangis verdickii. Other projects being conducted in my laboratory are concerned with the genetic structure of populations of Epipactis gigantea a North American orchid (with Alan Thornhill); genetic structure of micropopulations of Dudleya multicaulis and endangered geophyte that occurs on the UCI Campus (with Tito Marchant) and the effect of population size on the reproductive success of various Calochortus species (with Mark Elvin). the last mentioned are Mariposa lilies which occur mainly in the western United States. I have been involved in building a germplasm repository or gene bank at the UCI Arboretum for the cryopreservation of seed and pollen of endangered plant species. |
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Degrees |
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: B.S. (HONS) Rhodes University, 1961; M.S. Rhodes University, 1963; Ph.D. University of California at Los Angeles, 1968. |
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Honors and Awards |
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| Honorary
Life Member: International Bulb Society Herbert Medal 2003: International Bulb Society |
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Current Graduate Students |
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Current Post-docs |
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Recent Courses Taught |
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Links |
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Recent Papers |
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| Koopowitz,
H., Sohmer, S., Thornhill, A., and G. Perez (1998) Deforestation and
plant species extinctions in the Philippines: Psychotria as an example.
In: Rare, Threatened and Endangered Floras of Asia and the Pacific
Rim (C.-I Peng & P.P. Lowry, eds.) Academia Sinica Monograph Series
No. 16. pp. 111- 121.
Koopowitz, H. (2000). A revised checklist of the genus Paphiopedilum. Orchid Digest, 64: 155-179. Koopowitz, H. (2001). Orchids and their Conservation. Batsford Press, London. Koopowitz, H., Lavarack, P. and K. Dixon (2002) The Nature of Threat to Orchid Conservation. In Proceedings of the 1st Orchid Conservation Congress. (in press) Koopowitz, H. (2002). Clivia. Timber Press, Portland Light, M., Koopowitz, H. and T. A. Marchant (2003) The impact of climatic, edaphic and physiographic factors on the population behaviour of selected temperate and tropical orchids. In Proceedings of the 1st Orchid Conservation Congress. (in press) Koopowitz, H., Hawkins B. A., van der
Hoven H., Donnison-Morgan, D. and Howe, M. (2001) Comparisons between
the reproductive fitness of two species of Narcissus L. (Amaryllidaceae)
from Southern Spain. Herbertia |
