Luke Bentley DST-NRF Intern at the Grasslands-Forests-Wetlands Node (2016/17)
My initial interest in the natural sciences stemmed from a love for birds and bird identification in my junior school days. I have an obsessive nature when it comes to correctly identifying something in the field. From there my interests broadened into the global system sciences through my love of Geography and Biology at school, and into my undergraduate degree at Rhodes University, which I completed in Botany and Geography in 2012. I then pursued a joint honours degree in Geography and Botany at Rhodes in 2013, with modules on GIS, plant physiology, savanna ecology and environmental change. My honours project was done under the supervision of Prof. Nigel Barker and examined the conservation genetics of the highly endangered plant species Faucaria tigrina using the ISSR section of the plant genome. The research was published in the journal Biochemical Systematics and Ecology.
Starting in 2014, I pursued an MSc degree in the Rhodes Botany department under the joint supervision of Professors Nigel Barker and Mark Robertson. Species Distribution Modelling techniques were used to predict the future distribution of a number of montane plant species by mid-century. Final corrections on this MSc are now largely complete.
As a DST-NRF intern, I am working under Prof. Tim O’Connor on numerous projects including research to determine the environmental domain of C3 grasses in the Drakensberg mountains. The current and future range of these grasses is thought to be directly linked to increasing CO2 levels and is therefore of serious interest for global change research. We hope for an academic publication at the conclusion of this work.
