Tim Martin, Ph.D.

Professor of Tree Physiology

Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

2012 Awardee

Tim Martin’s research program focuses on studying the interacting influence of genetics, climate, environmental stress, and forest management on forest productivity, water balance, and carbon sequestration, and analyzing the physiological mechanisms underlying these responses.

Martin’s research program produces biological knowledge that can be used to better manage forest resources for sustainable production of economic and non-economic values.

Martin has spent considerable effort on three long-term initiatives: establishment of a National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) on southern pine climate change mitigation and adaptation, the Forest Biology Research Cooperative, and the UF Carbon Resources Science Center.

The NIFA CAP project (dubbed “PINEMAP” for Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation and Adaptation Project) focuses on developing silvicultural regimes and genetic deployment guidelines to increase carbon sequestration and increase resilience to climate change in planted southern pine. PINEMAP includes major research, extension, and education components, and ultimately will impact most of the commercially owned and a significant fraction of the non-industrial privately owned forestland in the region.

The Forest Biology Research Cooperative (FBRC) is a forest industry-University cooperative that provides a forum for UF/IFAS, government agencies, and forest industry to collaborate to further the FBRC’s mission of understanding the biological mechanisms controlling productivity in managed southern pine ecosystems. Since its founding in 1996, the FBRC has been effective at building infrastructure for pine productivity research and impacting forest management in the southeastern United States. The FBRC and its cooperators have maintained four trial series across more than 25 locations stretching from eastern Texas to Virginia.

Martin is Director of the UF Carbon Resources Science Center (CRSC). Established in late 2008, the Center aims to facilitate collaboration among UF researchers working in the area of carbon science in agriculture and natural resources, and to provide the science necessary to develop and evaluate forestry and agricultural technologies to reduce the rise in atmospheric CO² concentration.