Faculty

Joy Ward - Plant Physiological Ecology and Global Change
Associate Professor
Ph.D., Duke University
Phone: (785) 864-5218
Fax: (785) 864-5860
Ward Lab Webpage

Courses Taught

Biol 408 — Physiology of Organisms
Biol 409 — Physiology of Organisms Laboratory
Biol 420 — Topics in Global Change and Ecology
Biol 701 — Topics in Global Change: Ecological, Physiological, and Isotopic Approaches
Evrn 624 (IGERT course) — Climate Change, Ecological Change, Social Change

Awards and Honors

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
Edward and Thelma Wohlgemuth Faculty Scholar, University of Kansas
American Association of University Women — American Post-doctoral Fellowship
Perry Prize — outstanding Ph.D. dissertation at Duke University

Research Interests

• Evolutionary responses of plants to changing CO₂ concentrations and climate
• Effects of elevated CO₂ on plant flowering time
• Impact of low CO₂ on plant growth during the last ice age
• Scaling from molecular responses to ecosystem scale processes
• Paleoecology of the Rancho La Brea tar pits in southern California
• Differential effects of climate on the genders of dioecious species

Representative Publications

Gonzalez-Meler MA, E Blanc-Betes, CE Flower, JK Ward, N Gomez-Casanovas. In press. Plastic and adaptive responses of plant respiration to changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. Physiologia Plantarum.

Ward JK, DA Myers, RB Thomas. 2008. Physiological and growth responses of C3 and C4 plants to reduced temperature when grown at low CO₂ of the last ice age. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology 50:1388-1395.

Springer CJ, RA Orozco, JK Kelly, JK Ward. 2008. Elevated CO₂ influences the expression of floral-initiation genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. New Phytologist 178: 243-255.

Marchin RM, EL Sage, JK Ward. 2008. Population-level variation of Fraxinus americana L. (white ash) is influenced by precipitation differences across the native range. Tree Physiology 28: 151-159.

Springer CJ, JK Ward. 2007. Flowering time and elevated CO₂. Invited Tansley Review. New Phytologist 176: 243-255.

Ward JK, JM Harris, TE Cerling, A Wiedenhoeft, MJ Lott, M-D Dearing, JB Coltrain, JR Ehleringer. 2005. Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102: 690-694 (described in the New York Times).

Ward JK. 2005. Evolution and growth of plants in a low CO₂ world. In: A History of Atmospheric CO₂ and Its Effects on Plants, Animals, and Ecosystems, eds: Ehleringer J, T Cerling and D Dearing. Springer-Verlag, pp. 232-257.

Ward JK, J Kelly. 2004. Scaling up evolutionary responses to elevated CO₂: Lessons from Arabidopsis. Ecology Letters 7: 427-440.

Dawson TE, JK Ward, JR Ehleringer. 2004. Temporal Scaling of physiological responses from gas exchange to tree rings: a gender-specific study with boxelder. Functional Ecology 18: 212-222.

Coltrain JB, JM Harris, TE Cerling, JR Ehleringer, M-D Dearing, JK Ward, J Allen. 2004. Rancho La Brea stable isotope biogeochemistry and its implications for the paleoecology of late Pleistocene, coastal southern California. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 205: 199-219.

Ward JK, TE Dawson, JR Ehleringer. 2002. Responses of Acer negundo genders to inter-annual differences in water availability determined from carbon isotope ratios of tree ring cellulose. Tree Physiology 22: 339-346.

Ward JK, J Antonovics, RB Thomas, BR Strain. 2000. Is atmospheric CO₂ a selective agent on model C3 annuals? Oecologia 123: 330-341.

Recent Postdoctoral Fellows

Clint Springer — Currently faculty at St. Joseph's University
Jesse Nippert — Currently faculty at Kansas State University

Recent Graduate Students

Laci Gerhart — Ph.D.; current
Renee Marchin — MA; currently a PhD student at North Carolina State University
Debosree Samanta Roy — MA; currently a high school teacher in India