Natural and managed ecosystems provide critical products and services necessary to maintain the quality of life expected by the American people, including clean air and water, wildlife, food, products derived from plants and animals, and aesthetically pleasing environments for recreation and enjoyment.  Maintaining these ecosystem products and services in the face of rapidly expanding human populations and resource consumption requires a better understanding of ecological systems at landscape scales (greater than one square mile).  The reciprocal link between the spatial and temporal dynamics of landscape elements and ecological processes is a first principle of landscape ecology, and we seek to use this link to make reliable predictions to guide management and policy decisions.

Research Goals

Study spatial and temporal ecological dynamics to understand key processes driving natural disturbance, wildlife populations, forest dynamics, growth, and carbon sequestration.

Predict the cumulative and interacting effects of natural and human disturbances on ecosystem products and services at multiple scales.

Selected Research

• Conduct studies quantifying causal relationships among landscape-scale ecological processes, including those processes influenced by global phenomena such as climate change and invasive species.
  • Effects of Insect Defoliation on Regional Carbon Dynamics of Forests
• Develop predictive models of forest dynamics integrating the multi-scale drivers underlying natural and anthropogenic disturbances, using both empirical and simulation approaches.  
  • The Working Forest Initiative: Simulating the cumulative effects of the forest management strategies of multiple landowners on landscape pattern and biodiversity
  • Studying fire mitigation strategies in multi-ownership landscapes: Balancing management of fire-dependent ecosystems and fire risk.
• Develop predictive models underlying the establishment and spread of invasive species.
• Apply landscape process models to understand the cumulative and interacting effects of natural disturbances , human disturbances , population growth, and changes in fiber markets on ecosystem products and services.
  • Developing a GIS-Based Spatial Analysis Protocol to Assess Land Use, Soil Health, and Water Quality Changes with Woody Energy Crop Production
• Integrate predictive models from various science disciplines.
• Predict the effects of multiple global changes (including climate change and invasive species) on forest composition, spatial pattern, and biodiversity.
  • Predicting global change effects on forest biomass and composition in south-central Siberia
• Conduct field studies to fill knowledge gaps that hamper our ability to understand causation or make reliable predictions of the effects of landscape change.
  • Fire severity and ecosystem impacts immediately following an extreme fire event in northern Minnesota
  • Effects of forest composition on Northern Goshawk nest occurrence and productivity
  • Impacts of harvesting forest residuals for bioenergy on nutrient cycling and community assemblages in northern hardwood forest
  • The physiology, genetics, and distribution of ponderosa pine species vary with changes in elevation and environmental conditions
• Evaluate the effects of intensive, large-scale management of landscapes for multi-species conservation or woody crops for bioenergy on ecological communities, insects and disease and native biotic diversity.
  • Spatiotemporal response of the male Kirtland’s warbler population to changing landscape structure over 26 years.
  • Designing Pest-Resistant Forest Landscapes: The Importance of Spatial Pattern.