​*Because my personal and professional lives are so connected, I included my job title on the cover page. But, this is not any official site. Most of the information on this website relates directly to my academic career, teaching, research and the current responsibilities of my job. But, there are personal opinions and information that has nothing to do with my role as a professor at UNCG. This information was generally shaped by my academic experiences, including those at UNCG, or related to my growth as an ecologist and teacher. All opinions expressed on this website and in my Blog are mine and do not reflect the opinions of my employer- and perhaps maybe not a single other organism in the universe. Some opinions may anger people. I just hope those that are angered respect my right to state my personal opinion, even when it is related to my job.
Hello most gentle web browser,
(On April 18,2023 I posted a blog that tells a story of my early research career- what most readers are probably interested in.).Also I updated on the  blog's teaching tab with a cool video of a conversation with 12 graduating students (In May, 2023)-- look at just a few segments that show the kind of mentee-mentor relationships that are a feature of UNCB)

I am Jim Coleman. After graduating with a degree in Forestry from the University of Maine in 1982, I started traveling a circuitous path that led me metaphorically to the top of some beautiful mountains, to alder thickets so dense I couldn't see my hands, to bogs that almost swallowed me whole, and to many roads I never imagined traveling- some good, some bad.  That trek continues. 

One learns/accepts things about themselves when they trek through their own wilderness.  One thing I have come to accept is that there are no boundaries between me as a person or me as an academic. So, I designed this site with that in mind in the sense that the personal and professional are integrated. All opinions expressed are mine and not those of my employer.

I am a plant physiological ecologist with a passion for organismal and ecosystem science including how organisms and ecosystems will be altered by global change.  See my "Research- Summary of 5 areas" tab for my current and past research interests, my "research publication" tab for my publication history, and the "research grant" tab for my external funding history. 

I also love teaching and interacting with students, including: helping students through issues with mental wellness; helping students with their challenges in and outside of the classroom; getting students excited about ecology and evolution; and being the Director of Graduate Studies for UNCG's Department of Biology. This work evolved to making me try to address diversity, equity and inclusion issues with a simple strategy of caring. You can find more about what I teach,  how I teach, and what students think of my teaching by clicking on the "Teaching and Student Comment" tab. And, you can hear some class songs that I have written on the "Music" tab. 

My father had some special characteristics. He had the ability to believe in everybody and all of his students. He also genuinely cared about every student he ever taught. I discovered since starting teaching again that I somehow inherited that wisdom- I believe in every student and I care about them, forever, as if they are part of my extended family.

l am also a reformed administrator who has now returned from the dark side as a former provost, former dean, and former chief research officer. You can read ad nauseum about those experiences and accomplishments by clicking the "Curriculum vitae" tab. In all of those roles I was dedicated to the transformational mission of higher education and making institutions better.

You'll see in my curriculum vitae that I'd like to think I made important contributions, but recognition is rare for me. Administrators mostly achieve success by empowering others  or saying "yes" or "no" at the right times or hiring and/or empowering great people.  Nonetheless, I was really humbled/honored to be elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of science recognizing my work as a plant physiological ecologist and my work in building research capacity in universities and states.  Now, more of my focus is on the power of teaching and caring.

After 25 years as a senior administrator (VP Research, Dean and Provost), I have a lot to say about higher education and its leadership (who I worry is losing its way and has given up on the values of honestly/integrity and makes simple things ridiculously complicated), and I am learning how to say it. You can see my attempts by clicking on my "Blogs, Musing and Podcasts" tab. I would appreciate any feedback, including negative feedback (just don't make it personal). Please remember that these are personal opinions done outside my role as a professor.

I am in the process of re-building my spiritual core, and I am a new student of indigenous ways of knowing- this has changed me more than anything in my life (thank you Robin Wall Kimmerer). So, I included pictures of the lake that I live on that awoke my spirit, and musings about "spirit" that you can find on the "Lake Jeanette" tab.

I am also on the autism spectrum, who have suffered from, and managed well, depression and anxiety. I think it is critical that mental illness/challenges are not stigmatized, so I am open about these issues with students and colleagues and always happy to discuss. 

​Neurodiverse traits are also not generally considered in how universities think about an inclusive environment, other than for those on more extreme ends of the spectrum. Most of the ways we interact on a university campus are based/designed for neurotypical people, even though a large proportion of people, particularly in academe, have neurodiverse traits.  I only recently understood some traits i have from being on the spectrum, and how little understanding there is of people on the neurotypical side of the spectrum that those of us on the spectrum experience a very different reality from them-- for me in some cases.

I am trained and certified in mental health first aid, and I received the American Red Cross Life Saving Award for Extraordinary Personal action for helping to resuscitate  a colleague who had a heart attack and stopped breathing during a meeting in February 2020. These are two things for which I am very proud.


​My Educational History

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B.S. in Forestry (concentration in Forest Pathology) with highest distinction, 1982
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​ M.S., 1985; M.Phil 1985, Ph.D., 1987,  Yale Graduate School, Forestry and Environmental Studies
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​       Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of            Biological Sciences with Hal Mooney (1987-1988)
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Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Organismic and Evolutionary Bi-logy, with Fakhri Bazzaz 
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  • My current research focus is on the biogeochemical cycling of mercury in response to different silvicultural practices aimed at restoring longleaf pine ecosystems. With undergraduate students, we are also examining how longleaf pine seedlings respond to various environmental stresses and what that means for restoring longleaf pine stands.  This team includes Martin Tsz-Ki Tsui, Alex Chow, Carl Tretting, Yener Ulus and me. Earlier in my career, I was part of a team that used the mass balance capability of the EcoCELLs to trace the flux of mercury demonstrating that most mercury enters the ecosystem through leaf fall and on direct atmospheric deposition to soils (with Mae Gustin and Steve Lindbergh).  You can see a narrated powerpoint of our May 2022 presentation "How does mercury methylation respond to intensive forest management and the creation of anoxia in floodplain soils?"  here:  https://uncg.box.com/s/m3j1mwdnd49xy0iykx5whruvf9o04eml
 
  • How leaf and plant development affect leaf biochemistry and susceptibility to insects and pathogens.  Using eastern cottonwood as a model system, we (Clive Jones, Bill Smith (Yale) and I) integrated the tremendous work of Phil Larson, Richard Dickson and Jud Isebrands who detailed the synchrony of form and function in eastern cottonwood seedlings, cuttings and trees, including mapping the vasculature system and clearly showing the physiological, biochemical and anatomical changes that occur as a leaf moves through it sink to source transition and then ages.  We used this basic understanding to demonstrate the ability of leaf beetles, caterpillars and aphids to track leaf development age, and we demonstrated how the strength of vascular connections between different leaves strongly influenced whether an undamaged leaf would induce defensive chemicals when another leaf was damaged.  We used  the knowledge of form and function relationships to examine whether environmental stress (using ozone as a model stress), changes plant chemistry and leaf development in such a way that it would change the susceptibility of plants to four different "pests" that feed in different ways and thus change the dynamics of the of insect and fungal pathogen community. We studied a leaf beetle that eats leaf tissue; an aphid that draws phloem fluid, a rust fungus which feeds from living cells, and a leaf spot fungus that only feed after cells have been killed. These data led Clive Jones and I to create what we called a "phytocentric perspective" of plant responses herbivores. I am currently revising a draft paper that describes a link between leaf development with patterns and phenology of leaf production in trees  (indeterminate vs. determinate) to life history and ecological traits of herbivores and pathogens in their community,  such as the likelihood of having insects with multiple generations/yr or those that experience boom or bust outbreaks. A paper that I wrote with an undergraduate at the time (A. Soren Leonard) demonstrated that there can be as much as 10-fold differences in the amount of leaf area missing from herbivory vs. the amount of leaf tissue eaten by herbivores.  Leaves develop by cells expanding, not the addition of new cells. So, if tissue from developing leaves is removed, the size of the hole will grow exponentially as the cells around the hole expand.  This does not occur in older, fully developed leaves.  To me, this was a very important finding about how leaf development process affect interpretations of missing leaf area. But, the plant-herbivore, net ecosystem productivity community has not found it very interesting.
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  • How plants allocate carbon and nutrients to roots, shoots, storage and reproduction in response to environmental stress, We (Kelly McConnaughay and I)  examined the importance of plant development and size dependency in interpreting whether adjustments in resource allocation (e.g., root:shoot ratio; N concentration in tissues) in plants to stressful environments follows the hypotheses of optimal partitioning, ontogenetic drift, or both. We tested whether data that supported optimal partitioning resulted from comparing traits of plants at a common age as opposed to at a common size.  Plants often develop as a function of their size, and not necessarily their age. Therefore, if one compares plant traits at a common time of a control vs. a stressed plant, then one will be measuring plants of different sizes because the control plant is likely to be bigger than the stressed plant. In such cases, any differences demonstrated in plant traits for plants of different sizes could be due to ontogenetic drift (the allometric relationships between different plant parts as a plant gets bigger), and not necessarily due to adaptive strategies of plants in response to stress.
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  • The role of low molecular weight heat shock proteins in protecting plants from heat stress and their evolutionary ecology. We (Scott Heckathorn, Craig Downs, and Tom Sharkey) were the first laboratory to demonstrate that low molecular weight chloroplast heat shock proteins protect photosystem II from heat stress. We started this work by examining the physiological cost to plants of making heat shock proteins, and whether that cost helps shape the pattern and amount of heat shock proteins produced by a single species within populations that are more or less adapted to experience acute heat stress. We also examined whether such differences correlated with the environment in which different species evolved.  We also demonstrated that there is resource cost (particularly N) to making low and high molecular weight heat shock proteins.
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  • How plants and ecosystems respond to rising carbon dioxide levels along with changing precipitation and deposition of nutrients and pollutants associated with climate change.  The Desert FACE (Free-air CO2 enrichment) site,  taught us (the main PIs were me, Stan Smith, Jeff Seemann, Bob Nowak, Jay Arnone, Yiqi Luo, Wexin Cheng, Paul Verburg, Dani Obrist, Tim Ball,  Dave Evans and Dale Johnson) a great deal about how elevated carbon dioxide affects photosynthesis,  ecosystem productivity, carbon cycling and carbon storage, invasive species, soil water and water use efficiency, and the role of the microbial crust that covers the desert floor. Laboratory experiments taught us a lot about closing the carbon cycle, the response of net ecosystem productivity over several years in response to one unusually warmer year, and the full carbon, nutrient and water fluxes and storage of ecosystems in response to elevated carbon dioxide using a nationally unique large mass balance mesocosm facility (EcoCELLs)  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_nYbGfU20c). The EcoCell work on the lagged response of soil respiration to an anomalously warm year was on the cover of Nature in 2008.

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