Aerobotany Leader
Varun Swamy is a Research Fellow at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. He holds a Ph.D. from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, specializing in tropical forest ecology. Since 2003, he has conducted field-based research in the lowland Amazon rainforests of the Madre de Dios River in southeastern Peru. His research investigates the role of plant-animal interactions in the regeneration dynamics of tree communities and the long-term impacts of hunting-induced local extinctions of native animals on forest diversity, composition, and structure. The overarching goal of his work is to provide a rigorous ecological evaluation of the long-term impacts of human influences on Amazon rainforests, thereby supporting conservation, restoration, and management efforts directed toward these ecosystems. Varun is deeply fascinated by citizen science and its vast potential to collect valuable data for long-term research and conservation projects. Through the Aerobotany project, which he helped launch on Zooniverse, he aims to prove that data gathered by online citizen scientists can significantly improve our understanding of the biological rhythms and life cycles of rainforest trees, and help monitor and protect these invaluable rainforest ecosystems in the long term.
