Stefan Schnitzer

Stefan Schnitzer is a Professor at Marquette University's College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, and serves as Director of Environmental Science/Environmental Studies. His research spans tropical and temperate ecosystems, focusing on plant community dynamics, liana ecology, and forest regeneration.

• Research Interests: Mechanisms maintaining plant species diversity, negative density dependence in tropical forests, liana-tree competition, and ecosystem-level impacts of lianas on carbon sequestration.
• Key Projects: Long-term studies on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, and funded by NSF; examining plant-plant interactions in treefall gaps and resource competition in grasslands vs. forests.

Labs & Teams: Leads the Schnitzer Lab, conducting large-scale experiments in Panama, Costa Rica, and North America. Current work includes NSF-funded studies on liana effects in tropical forests.

• Scientific Awards: Mellon Distinguished Professorship.
• Students: Current Ph.D. students David DeFilippis and Pablo Narvaez; former Ph.D. students Felipe Mello (2023) and Sergio Estrada-Villegas (2019).