BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

 Matthew David Trager was born in Gainesville, Florida, on April 9th, 1980, to Kim

A. Trager and James C. Trager. While attending Westridge Elementary School in

Ballwin, Missouri, he won third place in his school science fair with an insect collection

comprising specimens he caught and curated. Matthew attended Grinnell College in

Grinnell, Iowa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology in 2002.

While in college he spent his summers restoring prairies for The Nature Conservancy in

Iowa, lobbying for The Wilderness Society's public policy department in Washington,

DC, and conducting research on grassland plant diversity at Kansas State University's

Konza Prairie. He also spent the fall of 2000 in Tanzania, taking classes at the University

of Dar es Salaam and conducting research in Serengeti National Park. Following his

undergraduate education, Matthew worked in the plant ecology lab at Archbold

Biological Station in south-central Florida for a year where he participated in long- and

short term ecological studies of several federally listed plant species. In the fall of 2003,

Matthew joined Dr. Emilio Bruna's lab at the University of Florida to pursue graduate

studies through the School of Natural Resources and Environment. He received his

Master of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Ecology in December, 2005.