Dr. Phillips recently was a Post Doctoral Fellow in South Africa . Ms. Ramer competed with students from 92 chapters of the Block and Bridle Club for the scholarship. Ms Ramer is a biochemistry major and agriculture minor who will graduate in May from Western. She will continue her education at Iowa State University where she will pursue a Ph.D. in Immunology. Her thesis work specifically focuses on the impacts of elephant browsing on woodland structure, and how changes in the spatial and temporal patterns of their migration affects the horizontal and vertical characteristics of woodlands.
Elephants are a keystone species in East Africa.
During the rainy season, they feed primarily on grasses that are abundant during this time. During the dry season, they switch to browsing on trees and shrubs. They have an enormous impact on the structure of woody vegetation, because they often push over mature canopy trees when they are unable to reach leafy branches. They can also completely strip a tree of its bark or gore the soft wood of baobob trees. Trees kept in smaller age classes are more susceptible to the fires that frequent most areas of the system.