Mark Blumler

Research interests:

• Biogeography: life-form and distribution; Mediterranean-type ecosystems; invasions; geogenetics; conservation-biogeographical aspects; climate change and ecosystems.
• Plant ecology: succession theory; seed ecology; species-diversity; plant strategies.
• Environmental history: agricultural origins; the Columbian exchange; desertification; history of environmental thought; California; the Middle East.
• Social theory: diffusion vs. independent invention and cultural change; environmental vs. social factors in cultural change; Western influences on critical social theory; Carl Barks.

Teaching specialties

• Physical Geography
• Biogeography and Conservation
• Historical Geography

• 2007. Near Eastern pollen diagrams and "deforestation." Middle States Geographer 40:150-157.
• 2006. The ethnic fan club: Jewish influence on US foreign policy, and the geography of terrorism. Pennsylvania Geographer 44(2):112-132.
• (with K. R. Young, L. Daniels, T. T. Veblan and S. S. Ziegler) 2004. Biogeography in North America. In Gaile, G. L. and C. J. Wilmott (eds.), Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century, pp.17-31. Oxford University Press.
• 2003(2004). Introgession as a spatial phenomenon. Physical Geography 41(1):88-105. (.pdf,1.82MB)
• 2003. "Smokey the Bear and Lyme Disease", Pennsylvania Geographer. 41 (1): 88-105.
• 2002. "Changing Paradigms, Wild Cereal Ecology, and Agricultural Origins." In Cappers, R. T. J. and S. Bottema (eds.), The Dawn of Farming in the Near East, pp. 95-111. Berlin.
• 2002. "Environmental Management and Conservation." In Orme, A.R. (ed.), Physical Geography of North America, pp.516-35. Oxford University Press.
• 2000. "Spatial analysis to settle an unresolved question in genetics, with both theoretical and applied implications." Research in Contemporary and Applied Geography: A Discussion Series , 24(3):1-24 (.pdf,155KB)
• 2000. "Vegetation dynamics in seasonally dry environments." In Khoetsian, A. (ed.), Proceedings of the IGU, Biogeography Study Group Scientific Conference, Biogeographical and Ecological Aspects of Desertification Processes in Arid and Semiarid Environments, Yerevan 23-29 May, 2000. Yerevan. (.pdf,15.3KB)
• 1998. "Evolution of caryopsis gigantism and the origins of agriculture." Research in Contemporary and Applied Geography: A Discussion Series , 22(1-2):1-46 (.pdf,247KB)