Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio<\/a>, Ph.D., grew up with lush forests as his backyard playground.<\/p>\nHe remembers walking through Veracruz, Mexico, listening to the wind playing in the trees and critters calling to each other all around him. His father would sometimes join him on horseback rides to a nearby river and lake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned to love and respect nature all around me,\u201d Quintana-Ascencio said. \u201cBut now, a younger generation sees it in a different way. They only know Veracruz as a place with agriculture and buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Quintana-Ascencio is working hard to preserve Florida\u2019s natural habitat for future generations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very scary,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople will not feel that the Earth is being threatened, because they won\u2019t have anything to compare it to. They will not know of a time when green was bountiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The desire to preserve nature and learn from our past, is what propelled Quintana-Ascencio to pursue his career. He has a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from State University of New York at Stony Brook. Quintana-Ascencio joined UCF in 2003 after working at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, in San Crist\u00f3bal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.<\/p>\n
Since 2005 he\u2019s been working on National Science Foundation-funded projects, the most recent called \u201cUsing Long-Term Data, Experiments and Modeling to Assess Disturbance-Demography Dynamics in Changing Environments.\u201d Most of this field work is conducted in collaboration with Eric S. Menges at the Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid, Florida. The focus is on 29 endemic plant species at Archbold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do is go to the plants and \u2018ask\u2019 them questions,\u201d Quintana-Ascencio said. \u201cWe get information on \u2018How dry or wet are the conditions where they live?\u2019 and \u2018When it rains, do they grow more or less?\u2019 We collect this information and then use it to calculate the chances for the populations to persist as the environment changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another part of the study focuses on the consequences of the actions of neighboring organisms, including people.<\/p>\n
The information collected serves to evaluate alternatives to preserve biodiversity and improve human life. He tells the students that they can work with whatever organism they like, as long as they also seek to figure out how humans affect the environment around them. He hopes that his continued research and that of his students will help preserve Florida\u2019s biodiversity for future generations.<\/p>\n
His twin daughters have inherited their father\u2019s passion for preservation. One daughter has two master\u2019s degrees in architecture from the University of Texas and works with a building restoration firm in New York. His other daughter has a Ph.D in archaeology from Bristol University in the United Kingdom. She is working in East Africa to preserve Swahili culture.<\/p>\n
Preserving nature and culture are important aspects of Quintana-Ascencio\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate diversity in plants, animals and people,\u201d he said. \u201cI am convinced that this is one of the most wonderful things that we have in this country and in the world. The people from Spanish speaking countries have a lot to contribute to this and I am glad to be part of this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UCF conservation biology professor Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio, Ph.D., grew up with lush forests as his backyard playground. He remembers walking through Veracruz, Mexico, listening to the wind playing in the trees and critters calling to each other all around him. His father would sometimes join him on horseback rides to a nearby river and lake. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":18875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,38,39,13,27,28,29],"tags":[309,916,1189,1223,2433,2635,3485,3535,3773],"class_list":["post-18788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology-departments","category-breaking-news","category-faculty-news","category-news","category-stem","category-top-news","category-ucf-news","tag-archbold-biological-station","tag-department-of-biology","tag-eric-s-menges","tag-experiments-and-modeling-to-assess-disturbance-demography-dynamics-in-changing-environments","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-pedro-f-quintana-ascencio","tag-ucf-biology","tag-ucf-department-of-biology","tag-using-long-term-data"],"yoast_head":"\n
Biology Professor's Heritage Inspired His Love of Nature - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/biology-professors-heritage-inspired-love-nature\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biology Professor's Heritage Inspired His Love of Nature - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UCF conservation biology professor Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio, Ph.D., grew up with lush forests as his backyard playground. He remembers walking through Veracruz, Mexico, listening to the wind playing in the trees and critters calling to each other all around him. His father would sometimes join him on horseback rides to a nearby river and lake. 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<\/p>\n