Juan Swanepoel

Juan is a SAEON Professional Development Programme student currently doing his PhD in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town. His thesis project focuses on the spatial distribution and dispersion of landscape features (heuweltjies) along with associated biodiversity to determine how these impact local ecological processes. Juan completed a NRF internship with SAEON in April 2016 which has helped him develop skills in environmental education, monitoring, research, fieldwork and data management. He was also involved with updating data for various long term ecological projects and presented historic data for 250 heuweltjies at the Tierberg Long Term Ecological Research sites (Prince Albert, Western Cape) at the 2015 Arid Zone Ecology Forum. His undergraduate studies include majors in Botany and Zoology, followed by his Honours degree in vegetation ecology during which he conducted vegetation surveys of historical Iron Age sites at the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site. During his internship with SAEON he completed his Masters degree in plant ecophysiology at the University of the Free State, investigating malformation symptoms of red karee (Searsia lancea) trees.