472

About the Contributors

Rob Alkemade is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). He obtained his PhD at Wageningen University in the role of nematodes in coastal ecosystems. He developed and applied models for assessing the effects of environmental change on biodiversity, first at the National Institute for the Environment and Public Health (RIVM) and later at PBL. He has a wide experience in biodiversity assessment and scenario analysis at the global level and contributed to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Global Environmental Outlooks and Global Biodiversity Outlooks. For this purpose, he developed the GLOBIO3 model. He is a visiting scientist at Wageningen Univer- sity doing research on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Rajendra P Shrestha received his PhD in natural resources management and currently is an Associ- ate Professor at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. His areas of research interests include land use and land cover change focusing on land change/degradation-human interface for policy support in the context of climate change. He also has interest in livelihood studies and food security in relation to land use. He has extensively published on these topics in southeast and south Asia. His research col- laboration has been with several organizations, FAO, UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, WAC and the universities in the region. Previously, he has worked as lecturer and agriculture officer in Nepal. He was also a Senior Programme Officer at the United Nations Environment Programme, Bangkok, a Visiting Scientist at Nihon University of Japan, and Roskilde University of Denmark.

Yongyut Trisurat is an Associate Professor of Forestry at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand. He received PhD in natural resources management and conservation from the Asian Institute of Technol- ogy (AIT) in Thailand. He was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Geography, Freie University Berlin in 1995, a Fulbright Visiting Scholar affiliated with University of Hawaii and the East-West Center in 2005, and a Visiting Researcher at AIT in 2009. He has been active in the area of protected areas, biodi- versity conservation, landscape ecology and GIS for over 15 years and has been a frequent contributor to several international agencies (e.g., ITTO, IUCN, ADB, CIDA, DANCED/DANIDA, WWF). His current research involves biodiversity conservation and climate change. In addition, he has published a number of peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on these subjects.

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Carlos Alberto Arnillas is a research fellow of the Conservation Data Centre of the National Agrar- ian University of Lima. He received his bachelor degree in Biology in the same university. His research About the Contributors

is focused on landscape ecology, with emphasis on conservation planning and climate change impact on biodiversity. Currently, he is part of an international team researching climate change impact on tropical Andes.

Peter C. Boyce is a visiting lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Previously he held a BRT Research Associate post for two years. When not teaching in Penang he is based in Kuching, Sarawak. Awards include a Silver Engler Medal from the International Association of Plant Taxonomists (1996) and the Henry Allan Gleason Award, New York Botanical Gardens (2000). Research interests centre on the Araceae of tropical Asia, Hanguana, speciation dynamics in everwet and perhumid Sunda, and morphological adaptations in specific ecological niches, notably rheophytic plants. Current research foci include taxonomy and systematics of Homalomena, the Schismatoglottideae, and Nephythyrideae, and of Hanguana.

Caroline Byrne received her B.A. degree in Natural Sciences and Ph.D. on the Systematics of the Thai Clusiaceae and Hypericaceae at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Following the completion of her Ph.D. in 2009, she was a research assistant at Trinity College on the Interactive Flora of the Burren Project for 6 months. At present, she is preparing and finishing papers for publication.

Kongkanda Chayamarit received her B.Sc. in biology at Kasetsart University, as well as her M.Sc. in Botany. She obtained her doctorate in Plant Systematics from the Faculty of Science of the University of Tokyo (Japan). From 1979 to 1984, she was plant taxonomist at the Forest Herbarium in Bangkok, till 2005 she worked there as curator, followed by the position of Director until 2008. In 2009, she became director of the Botanical Garden Organization of Thailand and is, therein, in charge of Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden. She is the production manager and motor behind the Flora of Thailand project.

Roland Cochard is Assistant Professor (since 2009) at the Asian Institute of Technology near Bang- kok, Thailand. He received his Bachelor in Environmental Science (with Honours) in 1999 from James Cook University in North Queensland, Australia, and his PhD in 2004 from the Institute of Integrative Biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. During and after his PhD (2000-2005) he conducted research on African savanna vegetation dynamics for ETH and the GTZ. In 2006, he conducted a survey of tsunami affected coastal ecosystems in Thailand and Indonesia (collaboration of ETH, AIT and ZIL), before he was involved in a bird atlas project (in 2007) and served as an advisor (in 2008) to Zurich Financial Services in a Country Risk Assessment Project. He is cur- rently conducting research on biodiversity and conservation, savanna and rainforest vegetation dynam- ics, invasive species management, ecological restoration, and climate change and sustainability issues.

Charlotte Couch is a botanical researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She received a BSc. (Hons) from University of Wales, Aberystwyth and subsequently a MSc in Plant Diversity (Biodiversity and Conservation) from the University of Reading. She has recently worked on conservation assessments for Cyperaceae species from Thailand and on the Interactive Key for Flora Malesiana.

Tom Curtis is a plant taxonomist, ecologist and horticulturalist. His doctoral research was on dacty- lorchids in Ireland and Europe, and he has over 36 years field experience in orchids and Ireland’s wild

473 About the Contributors

plants. He was co-author of The Irish Red Data Book: 1 Vascular Plants, The Orchids of Ireland and co-editor of Ireland and the Water Framework Directive. He has published extensively on the flora of Ireland and its coastal ecology. He formerly worked in the research branch of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Since 2002, he has worked as an ecological consultant on projects as diverse as the Water Framework Directive, the rare plants and montane flora of County Wicklow and on a fen restora- tion project with BirdWatch Ireland. Currently, he is a Research Associate of the Botany School, Trinity College, Dublin, Adjunct Lecturer in Botany and Plant Science in the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Chairman of Genetic Heritage Ireland.

Soejatmi Dransfield is a plant taxonomist specializing in bamboos, who gained her first degree in Plant Taxonomy from Academy of Agriculture, Ciawi, Bogor, Indonesia. She began her botanical career as a staff member of Herbarium Bogoriense, Indonesia, and gained her PhD from Reading University, UK, in 1975 with her thesis ‘The revision of Cymbopogon (Gramineae)’. After she moved to UK in 1978, she continued her research on bamboo taxonomy including the generic delimitation of the Old World tropical bamboos. She is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK, writing the account of bamboos from Malesia, Thailand and Madagascar.

Hans-Joachim Esser is Curator and Research Scientist at the herbarium of the Botanische Staats- sammlung München. He received his Diploma and Doctorate in Biology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He was Mercer Fellow at the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, USA, in 2000-2002. He worked as Postdoc and Visiting Researcher at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, the Rijksherbarium Leiden, Netherlands, and the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. He worked at the Forest Herbarium Bangkok with a grant of the Thai Biodiversity Research and Training Program (BRT). He has been specializing in Systematic Botany for 20 years. He contributed to various floras of tropical areas of Asia and South America; currently he is member of the Editorial Board of the Flora of Thailand.

Gustavo Galindo is currently working for the Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales (Ideam) in Colombia. He received his B.Sc. in Biology from the Universidad de los An- des and has postgraduate studies in GIS and remote sensing from CIAF and the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas. Gustavo has more than 10 years of experience in spatial analysis in the areas of biodiversity conservation, landscape ecology and ecosystem mapping; he worked for the Instituto de Investigación Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH), for more than 5 years where he received the support to do this research. His work is centered on biomass estimation of tropical forests in the frame of REDD.

Alan Grainger is Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, University of Leeds, which he joined in 1992. He has undertaken research into modelling and monitoring tropical deforestation since 1980, gaining his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford for building the world’s first global simulation model of long-term trends in tropical forest resources. For the past 20 years, he has also modelled the role of tropical forests in global climate change and the impacts of the latter on biodiversity. His interests also extend to sustainable development, desertification, and the analysis of forest policy and institutions.

Jan Janse has some 25 years of experience in modelling of aquatic ecosystems. He studied biology and environmental sciences at Utrecht University and specialized in freshwater systems. He worked at

474 About the Contributors

several institutions like a regional water board, the Research Institute for Nature Management, Wagenin- gen University, the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, and now the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, on (policy-oriented) research and advisory projects in the fields of water quality, biodiversity, and water management. He graduated at Wageningen University on the Ph.D. thesis ‘Model studies on the eutrophication of shallow lakes and ditches.’ These models linking human impact to tipping points in aquatic systems are nationally and internationally acknowledged. He is currently involved in the development and application of aquatic models in a global context.

P.K. Joshi has held the positions of Associate Professor and Head of Department of Natural Resources at TERI University, New Delhi, India. He is trained originally as an environmentalist, and then as an ecologist, developing skills in remote sensing and GIS with a firm scientific research basis. Prior to join- ing TERI University, Dr Joshi spent a decade with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on secondment from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), Dehradun, an internationally-renowned institution in the field of RS and GIS. His research has been recognized by the Indian Academy of Sciences (INSA) and NASI (National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) through the award of their highly prestigious Young Scientist Medal (2006) and Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award (2009) respectively and many others of similar kind. He is widely published, has experience of the successful supervision of graduate research students at PhD and masters levels, and, in addition to his BSc (Hons), MSc in Environmental Sciences, Post-grad Diploma in Marketing and a PhD, recently (2005) obtained a masters degree in Sustainable Development (Climate Change). His current research involves landscape analysis, climate change, and natural resource assessment using Geo-informatics.

Aung Pyeh Khant is a Geo-informatics Scientist working with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nitin Kumar Tripathi of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand. He obtained M.S. in Remote Sens- ing & Geographic Information Systems from AIT in 2002. His research interests are on biodiversity monitoring and geo-informatics.

Eric Koomen is assistant professor at the Department of Spatial Economics of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in ‘Spatial analysis in support of physical planning.’ This dissertation combined economic topics (valuation of open space, urban development, rural vitality) with earth science related issues (water management, flood-risk assessment) and combinations thereof (agricultural land-use change, open-space preservation). His current research interests include land-use change analysis and climate adaptation. He is a tutor on GIS and environmental impact assessment and European aspects of GI in the UNIGIS MSc programme and responsible for the courses on ‘Land-use change’ and ‘Assess- ing the landscape’ in the Earth and Economics programme. Eric, furthermore, works part-time at the Geodan Next Company where he informs regional authorities about likely spatial developments, their potential impacts and possible policy alternatives.

Grygoriy Kolomytsev, is a Lead engineer of the I.I.Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (IZ NASU). Since 2010, he is a PhD student at the Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv. In 2007, he participated in IT-training on pressure-based-biodiversity modeling, MSA, and GLM application at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) at

475 About the Contributors

the University of Twente (the Netherlands). Since 2006, he holds an M.S. in Biology & Zoology from the Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Tom Kram is a programme manager for integrated assessment modeling at the Netherlands Environ- mental Assessment Agency (PBL). He earned a M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Operations Research from Technical University Delft, specializing in economics of electric power production. His core responsibilities include the development and application of the IMAGE modeling framework, working with national and international research partnerships. He has contributed to IPCC in a variety of functions, including Lead Author of the 2nd Assessment Report and the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). Currently he is a member of IPCC-TGICA, a task group set up to support data and scenario information for impact and climate analysis. His current research focuses on the role of land- use in as pivot for climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation (e.g. bio-energy, forestry options) in close conjunction with providing other ecological goods and services for human development (food, water, biodiversity, etc.).

Jan Peter Lesschen is researcher at Alterra in Wageningen (Netherlands), which is part of Wageningen University and Research centre. He has a MSc. degree in soil science from Wageningen University and obtained his PhD degree at the University of Amsterdam on the study of multi-scale interactions between soil, vegetation, and erosion in Southeast Spain. He is currently working in EU and Dutch funded proj- ects on greenhouse gas emissions, land use change, bio-energy, nutrient management, and regional scale modeling. Furthermore, he is responsible for the development of the MITERRA model, which assesses effects and interactions of policies and measures in agriculture on GHG emissions, nitrogen fluxes and soil carbon stocks at regional level for the EU-27 and at local level for the Netherlands.

Nguyen Kim Loi is a Lecturer at Department of Applied Geo-infomatics, Nong Lam University (NLU) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He received B.S. degree in Forest Resources from Nong Lam University and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Watershed Management and Environmental from the Kasetsart University (KU) in Thailand. Dr. Nguyen Kim Loi has extensive experience with watershed and envi- ronmental management, GIS, and land use planning issues. He is expert in GIS application and related spatial techniques for watershed modeling, land use mapping, soil erosion control, and climate change. His current research involves GIS, Soil and Waters Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, and climate change.

Denisse McLean R. has a B.Sc. in Socioeconomic Development and Environment from the Pana- merican Agricultural University, Zamorano in Honduras. She works as a research assistant for the Bio- diversity Modeling Project of the Regional Biodiversity Institute (IRBIO). She was responsible for the national biodiversity assessments for Honduras and Nicaragua and for the integration of models into the regional assessment for Central America. She also worked in the design of a handbook on biodiversity modeling on the national scale with GLOBIO3 methodology for Spanish speaking audience. Currently, she is working on the Central American model results validation with countries’ Biodiversity Technical Committees, on the transfer of outputs to environmental authorities and on developing other biodiversity modeling proposals for the region.

476 About the Contributors

Conor Meade is a Lecturer in Ecology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. A BSc graduate in Biology from University College Dublin, he completed a PhD in Plant Systematics at the University of Dublin, Trinity College in 2001. He joined the National University of Ireland as a postdoc- toral researcher in 2001 and was appointed University Lecturer in 2006. His research interests include angiosperm systematics (especially the Annonaceae), gene-flow and hybridization in plant populations, and plant biogeography in Europe and Southeast Asia.

David Middleton is a tropical botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland. He re- ceived his BSc and PhD degrees in Botany from Aberdeen University. He has furthered his research on the taxonomy of Southeast Asian plants at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, the Rijksherbarium Leiden, Netherlands, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, USA and the Royal Botanic Garden Edin- burgh. He has contributed accounts of the Apocynaceae to the Flora of Thailand, Flora Malesiana, the Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak, the Flora of Peninsular Malaysia, the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam, and is a coauthor on the Flora of China account. He currently specialises in research on the Gesneriaceae of Southeast Asia and is the editor of the Edinburgh Journal of Botany.

Justin Moat has been employed for 18 years at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew with the initial remit of setting up a GIS unit, which he currently heads. Justin develops and manages the GIS unit, projects and related research, especially webmapping, vegetation mapping and conservation assessments.

Muthama Muasya is a Senior Lecturer at University of Cape Town (South Africa). He holds BSc and MPhil degrees from Moi University (Kenya), PhD from University of Reading (UK), and postdoctoral stints at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK), Rutgers University (USA) and KU Leuven (Belgium). He teaches courses in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology and does primary research in Angiosperm Systematics. He has broad interests on the taxonomy, biogeography, and phylogenetics of the cosmopoli- tan monocotyledonous family Cyperaceae, the evolution of the Cape flora, diversity and use of wetland plants, and the origin, diversity, and utilization of the African savanna biome.

Ir C.A. (Sander) Mücher is head of the team Earth Observation at Alterra, which is part of Wa- geningen University and Research Centre (WUR). He is a senior researcher in Remote Sensing & GIS with a background in Tropical Crop Science, with specialisations in Rural Surveys & Land Ecology, Soil Science and Geo-Information. His research activities at Alterra started in 1993, as a project coordinator of various studies funded by the National Remote Sensing Programme (NRSP). In 1997, he started as a project coordinator of the EU-FP4 project PELCOM which aimed at land use monitoring with low reso- lution satellite data for environmental applications. He is involved in many European research projects in which the integration of RS and GIS with ecological knowledge plays an important role. Most recent EU projects are ECOCHANGE, which aims to assess and forecast biodiversity and ecosystem changes in Europe, and EBONE, which aims at an integrated biodiversity observing system in space in time.

John Parnell, currently Head of the School of Natural Sciences, is Professor of Systematic Botany and Curator of the Herbarium in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He obtained both his B.Sc. in Botany and Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and was then appointed to a Lectureship in Trinity College. His research in higher plant systematics, especially plant taxonomy and floristics, is deliberately

477 About the Contributors

split between and uniquely links Europe and Thailand. This split allows for better understand of the variation patterns and biogeographic patterns of tropical taxa, usually known from only a few individu- als, by studying population scale variation and biogeography in Ireland.

Colin Pendry is a Researcher and Editor of the Flora of Nepal at the Royal Botanic Garden Edin- burgh. He received a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Edinburgh and PhD in Tropical Ecology from the University of Stirling. He was a Royal Society Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin from 1994-1996, and in 1997, was a visiting lecturer at Khon Kaen University. He has exten- sive field experience in the UK, SE Asia, Latin America, and Nepal, and has taxonomic expertise in the Polygalaceae of Thailand and Indochina and Latin American Polygonaceae. He has published on the historical biogeography of Latin American seasonally dry forests and the ecology of SE Asian rainforests.

Manuel Peralvo is a geographer currently working as an associate researcher at CONDESAN in Quito, Ecuador. He received a MA from the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin and is a PhD candidate at the same institution. His main area of research is focused in human-environment relationships with emphasis in the use of environmental models to support deci- sion making processes. Currently, Manuel is working in different projects in the Andean region aimed at characterizing and supporting adaptation mechanisms to the combined effects of climate change, land use, and land cover change. Other researches initiatives are related to the generation of environmental information to support REDD mechanisms and the analysis of the impacts of environmental changes on the structure and function of Andean social and environmental systems.

Nannapat Pattharahirantricin is a researcher of the Forest Herbarium, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. She received the Master degree in Forest Biology from Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University in Thailand. She has been working on some genera in Euphorbiaceae and Malvaceae for the Flora of Thailand treatments. She is now responsible for the productions of Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany), an international botanical journal and the Flora of Thailand publications, and also working as the Forest Herbarium curator assistant.

Rachun Pooma is a researcher of the Forest Herbarium, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. He received the Ph.D. in Botany from Kasetsart University in Thailand. He has been working on plant taxonomy, especially in Dipterocarpaceae and Burseraceae for Flora of Thailand Project, and has been surveying and collecting plants though out the country. He is now a curator of the Forest Herbarium.

Lilik Budi Prasetyo is Associate Professor at Department of Forest Resources Conservation and Ecotourism, Forestry Faculty of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Indonesia. He received B.S. degree in Faculty of Agriculture of IPB and the Master degree in the Department of environmental sciences, Tsukuba University. He completed his PhD degree in the same University in Forest Management at the Institute Agriculture & Forestry. He has visited some institution such as the Tokyo University, Japan, National Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba Japan, and Viikki Tropical Forest Research Institute of Helsinki University as visiting researcher. Most of his research is on the application of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System in the field of Landscape Ecology.

478 About the Contributors

Neena Priyanka is a Doctoral Research Fellow at TERI University, New Delhi, India. She earned her B.Sc. degree in Botany (Hons) from Delhi University, and the Master’s degrees in Environmental Studies from TERI University. She was a visiting researcher to Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), Fukuoka, Japan to carry out studies on Urban Heat Islands (UHI) and a faculty guest in alliance with Prof. P. K. Joshi at Guru Govind Indraprastha and TERI University. Her work mostly focuses on remote sensing, GIS ad spatial modeling in the context of biodiversity conservation and natural resources management with some empirical studies on the endangered Olive ridley sea turtle habitat assessment, Simarouba glauca modeling for livelihood adaptation, Lantana camara invasion potential, to provide scientific basis to decision makers for species conservation and management arena. Her current PhD research involves invasive species modeling in context of climate change and anthropogenic disturbances.

Vasyl Prydatko is a Senior Specialist at the Ukrainian Land and Resource Management Center (ULRMC), NGO, which objectives include applying RS, digital mapping, GIS, and other IT data to support rendering public and private sector decisions, both in Ukraine and in the region. He worked as the Associated Professor at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (2007-2009), Senior Scientist at the environmental institute of the National Security and Defense Coun- cil of Ukraine (1999-2001), and Head of the Department of Ministry of the Environmental Protection of Ukraine (1993-1999). In ULRMC, he coordinates and manages international IT-projects (USAID, UNDP, GEF, NEAA, PBL). Vasyl began his carrier as biology scientist at the Wrangel Island Reserve and participated in scientific expeditions in the Arctic (1978-1988). He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology NASU and an M.S. in Biology & Zoology from the Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Niels Raes is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the NCB Naturalis. His main research interests concern macroecological patterns of biodiversity and biogeography derived from species distribution models and the predicted impacts of global climate change on these patterns.

Wilbert van Rooij works as a senior consultant at the non-profit organisation Aidenvironment in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He did his Master’s in tropical forest management at the Wageningen Agricultural University and worked for several years in Ethiopia and Malaysia as a forestry, GIS, and Remote Sensing specialist. From 2006-2010, Wilbert specialised in biodiversity modelling at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Organization (PBL) and joined Aidenvironment in 2010. He developed a modelling training manual and organized several training courses mainly in tropical regions with participants from over 20 countries. Currently, he is involved with the integration of land use and biodiversity modelling with strategic environmental assessment projects in Vietnam and Papua.

David A. Simpson is Assistant Keeper for Systematics in the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He graduated from the University of Wales in 1977 with an Hon- ours degree in Botany and Forestry. This was followed by a MSc in Pure and Applied Plant Taxonomy from the University of Reading in 1978 and a PhD at the University of Lancaster in 1983. His research focuses on the taxonomy and systematics of Sedges (Cyperaceae), Grasses (Poaceae) and related families worldwide. He has published seven books and over 150 papers. He is Editor in Chief of Kew Bulletin and a member of the Flora of Thailand and Flora of China Editorial Boards.

479 About the Contributors

Marta Pérez-Soba is senior researcher at the Centre for Geo-Information at Alterra Wageningen University Research (the Netherlands). She received her degree as Agricultural Engineer from the Poly- technic University of Madrid (Spain) and has a PhD on environmental impacts on forest ecosystems (Groningen University, The Netherlands, 1995). She has been active in the topics of eco-toxicology, landscape ecology, and GIS for over 20 years and contributes as researcher or coordinator of projects for several European organisations (e.g. European Commission, European Environment Agency, ESPON). Her current research involves impact assessment of land use change, sustainable development, and future regional developments in the European countryside.

George Staples is Senior Researcher in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a post he has held since 2007. He earned B.A. and M.Sc. degrees from Florida Atlantic University and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. For 19 years, he was Botanist at the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, where he authored three books, including a major new identification manual for tropical cultivated plants. Current research interests include taxonomy and systematics of Convolvulaceae, Asian floristics, invasive spe- cies biology, and economic and useful plants. He has studied the Thai flora for 25 years and contributed botanical specimen data to the chapter on Thai phytogeography in this book.

Somran Suddee is a Senior Scientific Researcher at The Forest Herbarium (BKF), Bangkok, Thai- land. He received his B.Sc. degree in Forestry from Kasetsart University, his M.Sc. in Botany from Chulalongkorn University, and his Ph.D. in Plant Taxonomy from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland (in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London). He is currently working on the families Labiatae and Orchidaceae for the Flora of Thailand Project. He is a member of the Plant Taxonomy committee in the Royal Thai Institute.

Sarawood Sungkaew is now a lecturer in the Forest Biology Department, Faculty of Forestry, Kas- etsart University. He gained B.S. and M.S. degrees in Forestry from Kasetsart University, and Ph.D. in Plant Taxonomy and Systematics from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. He is one of the collaborators of Bamboo Phylogeny Group, an international team of researchers with expertise in bamboo systematics and dedicated to producing a robust phylogeny of the woody bamboos. His areas of research interests are forest plant diversity, forest plant ecology, and taxonomy and systematics of bamboos.

Atchara Teerawatananon is an official researcher in the Natural History Museum, Thailand. She obtained her B.S. degree in Agriculture, M.S. degree in Botany, both from Kasetsart University, and her Ph.D. in Plant Taxonomy and Systematics from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. Her research area involves museum management, plant diversity, grass taxonomy, and systematics.

Anna Trias-Blasi has been recently appointed Bulbous Monocot Systematics & Conservation re- searcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in the UK. She received a Licenciatura en Biología (equivalent to a B.S. degree) in Biology from the Universitat de Girona in Spain, a M.Sc. in the Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants from the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in the UK, and a Ph.D. entitled Systematics of the Thai Vitaceae from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. She was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 2010. Her research involves plant systematics, taxonomy, biogeography, and conservation.

480 About the Contributors

Nguyen Dieu Trinh is Official at the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam. She got the Master Degree in Environmental Economics Management at Hanoi Economics University. Her experi- ence is the involvement in the planning process where environment and climate change issues are taken into account for sustainable socio-economic development strategies/plans. She is also active in working with development partners/donors across the globe for international knowledge transfer, experiences sharing, and policy update at all levels. Her daily job is either doing research or integrating research results into planning and contributing to the environmentally friendly investment policy-making process.

Nitin Kumar Tripathi is Associate Professor of Remote Sensing and GIS at Asian Institute of Tech- nology in Bangkok, Thailand. He received B.Tech. degree in Civil Engineering from National Institute of Technology, India, and the M.Tech. and Ph.D. in Geoinformatics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in India. He was a Visiting Outstanding Researcher in Osaka City University in 2008. He has been active in the area of remote sensing applications to protected areas, biodiversity conservation, and GIS for over 20 years and has been a frequent contributor to several international agencies (e.g., DANIDA/ NACA/ MPEDA/ SIDA/AIT/UNEP). His current research involves biodiversity conservation, climate change, and green house gas mapping using remote sensing.

Carolina Tovar is a research fellow of the Conservation Data Centre of the National Agrarian Uni- versity of Lima. She received an MSc degree in Conservation of Forestry Resources from the National Agrarian University, Lima, Peru, and a second MSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Am- sterdam. Her research is mainly related to landscape ecology, species distribution modeling, and land use/cover change. She has been involved in conservation planning for the last 8 years, collaborating with local actors and national and international research centers related to the tropical Andes and Amazonia. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Oxford, on the integration of long term ecological analysis in conservation issues.

Albertus G. Toxopeus is an Associate Professor at the Department of Natural Resources (NRS) at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at the University Twente (UT) in Enschede, The Netherlands. He received B.S. and the M.Sc.degree in Biology from the University of Groningen (RUG), and Ph.D. in Natural Resources Management and Conservation from the University of Amster- dam in The Netherlands. He has been active in the area of protected areas, biodiversity conservation, RS and GIS for over 20 years and has been a frequent contributor to several international agencies (e.g., UNESCO, FAO, IUCN, KWS, MICOA). His current research involves biodiversity, conservation, and climate change.

Peter H. Verburg is a professor and the Head of the Department Spatial Analysis and Decision Support of the Institute for Environmental Studies at VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Peter obtained his PhD at Wageningen University in the field of land use modeling in the Asian region. Peter is a geographer specialized in the integrated analysis of land use change at multiple spatial and temporal scales. As part of his activities, he has developed the CLUE model that has been used for land use change modeling in a wide range of scenario studies across the globe. Peter has published over 80 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of geography, landscape ecology, agricultural and environmental science.

481 About the Contributors

Peter C. van Welzen is Professor in Tropical Plant Biogeography at Leiden University (The Nether- lands) and works on the Malesian Euphorbiaceae in the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biology at Leiden. He is an active contributor in several Asian flora projects (e.g., Flora Malesiana, Flora of Thailand) and combines alpha-taxonomy with phylogenetic and biogeographic research. Peter is board member of the Flora of Thailand Project.

Chandra Irawadi Wijaya is Graduate Student in Information Technology for Natural Resources Management at Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia. He received his Bachelor Degree in For- estry from Bogor Agricultural University. He was an exchange research student at Division of Spatial Information Science, University of Tsukuba, Japan in 2009/2010. He worked at Tropenbos International Indonesia Programme in 2009 as GIS Specialist and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) during 2005 - 2007 as GIS Consultant. Currently, he works at World Agroforestry (ICRAF) as Research Assistant. His current research involves land use change study, conservation, environmental services, and GIS.

Paul Wilkin has been Lilioid & Alismatid Monocots Team Leader in the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew since 2002. He received a B.A. Degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and a M.Sc. and PhD in plant systematics from the University of Reading. His main research focus is the systematics, ethnobotany, sustainable use and conservation of Dioscoreales, the yams and their allies. This programme is underpinned by baseline surveys and inventories in Dioscoreaceae, especially in Madagascar and Thailand. He is the Contribution Editor of Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) has been active in imaging and databasing Kew’s Monocot herbarium holdings and in developing e- Taxonomy. Other monocot taxa under systematic study include Dracaenoids (currently Dracaena and Sansevieria (Asparagceae), Gagea and Erythronium (Liliaceae), Sternbergia (Amaryllidaceae) and Tigridieae (Iridaceae) of Bolivia.

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