Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology
Yellowstone Ecoregion Mountain Pine Beetle project A range of wood-boring beetles (including the mountain pine beetle) have affected broad areas of the Rocky Mountains over the past two decades. These infestations are unprecedented in historical times, and correspond to a period of warming climate that has decreased winter mortality of beetles and led to latitudinal …
Nutrients are exchanged between ecosystems in many ways. The direction and magnitude of fluxes across the landscape can dramatically influence ecosystem processes. In Lake Myvatn in northern Iceland, an abundance of midges (in Icelandic, ‘my’ is midge, and ‘vatn’ is lake) emerge from the lake on a boom-and-bust cycle approximately every 7 years and create a visible …
Relationships among remotely sensed forest canopy traits and insect community composition Globally, insects are the largest and most diverse group of animals, representing an overwhelming percentage of Earth’s biodiversity. In addition, insects and their associated pathogens constitute one of the single largest disturbance threats to forest ecosystems in North America. However, landscape-scale drivers of insect …
We can observe and describe forest disturbances in a number of ways using satellite imagery, airborne observations, and field measurements. Our work in Upper Midwest and Great Lakes forests considers numerous disturbance types: severe storm winds, insect defoliation, fire, and various partial and clear-cut harvest treatments. We’ve collected a number of field measurement datasets in …
All organisms interact via chemical signals. As such, chemical ecology plays a central role in explaining the interactions among organisms and their environment and how these interactions affect ecosystem functioning. Traditionally, standard chemical measurements are time consuming, expensive, and require destructive sampling. The use of reflectance spectroscopy to characterize foliar chemistry is based on the …
Landscape structure and natural pest-suppression services in bioenergy landscapes: implications for regional food and fuel production Rapid changes in Policies, economics, and societal demand are altering the composition and configuration of agricultural landscapes. Theoretical and empirical research suggests that changes in the structure and spatial configuration of agricultural landscapes will affect crop yields through indirect …