About Dr. Beth A. Kaplin
My passion is biodiversity, including the ecology of individual species, community ecology especially plant-animal interactions, landscape interactions, ecosystem functioning, and conservation. My research interests have developed along several pathways. Ecology dominates one pathway. I am drawn especially to the ecology of seed dispersal, including tree phenology patterns, fruit and seed characteristics, animal seed dispersal behavior, and forest regeneration dynamics. I am especially interested in the ecology of montane tropical forests: elevational gradients and phenology patterns, plant and animal distributions, and climate change.
Primate ecology and conservation is a big interest of mine, especially primates as seed dispersers. I am particularly intrigued with the behavioral ecology the Cercopithecus group, and with chimpanzee seed dispersal ecology and conservation in increasingly fragmented and disturbed landscapes. Another related pathway involves my fascination with the functioning of protected areas (PAs) and biodiversity conservation. This includes the management of PAs, how humans interact with PAs, the socio-ecological interface of protected areas and the surrounding matrix or land uses, buffer zones as tools for conservation, and human wellbeing associated with PA effectiveness. Another path of interest is human-wildlife interactions: the nature of these interactions, how these interactions affect biodiversity conservation, and strategies to mitigate negative interactions.
The practice and theory of capacity building is a topic I began to explore as I focused over the last 20 years on building capacity for conservation within the Albertine Rift through the Regional Network for Conservation Educators in the Albertine Rift (RNCEAR) and in Rwanda. I have become deeply fascinated with the potential of higher education in conservation in developing countries, including empowerment, active teaching techniques, and contributions of curriculum for national development and poverty reduction strategies. I have been honored to work with colleagues in Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Central African Republic on these issues.
In 2005 a colleague in Rwanda, Eugene Rutagarama, invited me to write a grant proposal to the MacArthur Foundation for a project to create conservation biology programs at the national university in Rwanda in order to build capacity for conservation within the country. This grant was funded, and then two more grants Beth wrote to the MacArthur Foundation were funded, for a total of 9 years and nearly 1 million USD. From 2006 to 2015, I moved to Rwanda with the grant from the MacArthur Foundation as a Technical Advisor to develop biodiversity and conservation science curriculum at National University of Rwanda (now University of Rwanda) including BSc options, and an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation & Natural Resources Management. I also created the Regional Network for Conservation Educators in the Albertine Rift to support and empower conservation scientists in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Tanzania, and Uganda. In addition to my position at University of Rwanda, I am a Research Professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston in the School for the Environment. I am also the President of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in 2022.