Diana Soteropoulos

הצטרפ.ה ב:אוק' 25, 2018 פעילות אחרונה: מרץ 28, 2024 iNaturalist

I began learning field biology in the Coastal Plain of Virginia in 2001. After studying numerous taxa for many years (including amphibians and birds) across southeastern US, I’ve been focused primarily on plants since 2014: four years in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Valley and Ridge, and Coastal Plain of the Mid-Atlantic and in Arkansas since 2017.

In 2019, I started a professional position as a botanist with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, a state agency administering the Arkansas Natural Heritage Program and the Arkansas System of Natural Areas, and I served as the Arkansas Herbarium Digitization Coordinator for six years. I set up and managed the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission - Natural Areas Inventory and Arkansas Plants of Conservation Concern projects on iNaturalist so that observations made by community scientists can better inform the ANHC about rare species records and the species identity and distribution on its natural areas in addition to identifying species invasions requiring management.

I am an active member of the Arkansas Native Plant Society and working on my dissertation, “Enhancing the Arkansas floristics toolbox for conservation: using community science and field surveys to close knowledge gaps in species distribution, species co-occurrence, and floristic quality.” As part of this project, I conducted a complete flora of the Pine City Natural Area, which has saline barrens, post oak flatwoods, and bottomland hardwood forest. Most of my voucher specimens have photos uploaded and linked to my collector number.

In 2023, I joined the Botany team at NatureServe.

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