User:Anniewelch/Karen McKee

Karen McKee, Ph.D. is a retired U.S Geological Survey (USGS) wetland plant ecologist. She currently has more than 200 publications listed, covering a wide range of topics including mangroves, sea-level rise, wetland response to climate change, and communication through videography. While at the USGS, McKee worked in the Wetland and Aquatic Research Center. In addition to her work at the USGS, McKee has created a webpage that aims to communicate science through videography, and contains resources for others who wish to do the same. She is also a co-founder of the Wetland Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides grants to students studying wetland science.

Career
McKee enrolled at Mississippi State University in August of 1968. There she received a Bachelor of Science in zoology. In 1977 she received a master's degree in botany from North Carolina State University, and in 1993 she received a Ph.D. in botany from Louisiana State University.

She moved on to work for USGS. Much of her research on wetlands has been climate-focused, specifically on the response of mangrove ecosystems to climate change. In 2008 McKee expanded her career into videography, after noticing that scientific content in video format appeared to be more accessible to the public than scholarly journal articles. Her website, the Scientist Videographer, was established in 2012. She has produced eight peer-reviewed videos on her various research endeavors. She also produces video tutorials for others who want to use videography as a medium for science communication, as well as video tutorials on scientific writing.

The scope of McKee's research centers around mangrove wetlands within the United states, Australia, and New Zealand. She contextualizes her findings through the ecological functions of mangroves due to their abundance. Her passion for research in mangroves got started and during a trip to Belize. The breadth of her research within the US centers around the Gulf Coast, Mississippi river valley, and the Caribbean waterways. As of 2008, she began publishing educational videos on her journey into scientific research videos.

McKee's research focused on the growing effects climate change has on wetland species composition, changes in hydro-patterns, and soil biochemistry. She uses historical records embedded within her research to analyze current information on wetland biota with a focus on its relationship with climate change. Sea-level rise, and the effects of natural disasters within wetlands comprise the bulk of her work pertaining to wetland hydrology. Within soil biochemistry her research focuses on nutrient change and soil degradation in relation to wetland hydrology and its respective biota.

Major Contributions
McKee has published more than 200 scientific articles, technical reports, and book entries focused on threats and solutions to wetlands all over the world. As a teacher and a scientist, she has taught undergraduate and graduate students. She served as a mentor to students, helped with funding and financial counseling, and aiding many to finding professions in the scientific and wetland community.

McKee has done extensive research on the environmental drivers of mangrove establishment and the ecosystem services provided by mangroves. She has also documented how Caribbean mangroves adjust to sea level rise and how they are affected by hurricanes. She has also done work on how wetland plants have adapted to deal with low oxygen and hydrogen sulfide usually found in wetland soils. She has examined how mangrove forests might be limited by nitrogen or phosphorus. She was also part of an important project that showed that marshes can increase their elevation gain, making them more resilient to sea level rise.