Karen L. Ritchie graduated from Appalachian State University in 1995 with a BS degree in Biology. For the next 7 years she worked as a wildlife biologist for several non-profit and for-profit companies, state agencies and universities including Hastings Natural History Reservation (http://www.hastingsreserve.org), Big Sur Ornithology Lab (http://www.ventanaws.org), Texas Parks and Wildlife Endangered Resources Division (http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us), Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project (http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/mfbp), Paul Price Associates, Inc. (http://www.paulprice.com) and Elixir Botanical Garden (http://www.elixirfarm.com). She began the Masters of Science program at ASU in August 2002 following publication of the Black-tailed Gnatcatcher species account for Birds of North America series (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/BNA/) with coauthor and friend, Dr. C. Craig Farquhar. While in graduate school she has contracted and coordinated avian inventories for the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 2003, Karen began working with Dr. Melany Fisk on mineral soil community structure at Bartlett Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/durham/4155/bartlett.htm). With concentrated, spatially repetitive sampling, she identifies fungi by PCR amplification of the ITS region of the rRNA gene using fungal specific primers, ITS1f and ITS4,
restriction digest, cloning and sequencing. She employs Terminal-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (T-RFLP) labeled with HEX and FAM and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLP) to determine species identification, diversity and abundance. Molecular work is conducted both at ASU and the Remington Lab at University of North Carolina at Greensboro (http://www.uncg.edu/%7Edlreming/). She has received funding from ASU Thesis and Dissertation Grants, ASU Graduate Student Association Senate, Fisk Lab, and Yanai Lab at SUNY-ESF (http://www.esf.edu/for/faculty/yanai.htm). She hopes her work will begin to elucidate fungal process in mineral nutrient allocation and cycling in northern hardwood forests.
Karen's links: KLRitchieresume.htm 
