Research
Applied Forest Ecology & Ecosystem-based Forest Management
Our research focuses on the effects of global changes on the dynamics and diversity of forest ecosystems.
Past research has focused on how humans influence forests directly, through activities such as harvesting, as well as indirectly, through changes in the abiotic environment (CO2, N deposition). While my interests are generally focused on how trees and forests grow in response to their environment, our research is often collaborative and multidisciplinary to broaden the focus of projects to multiple aspects of forest ecosystem function.
Our past research has included sites in temperate, tropical, and boreal forests. With the western boreal forest at our doorstep at the U of A, it is certain to be a strong focus of research in the lab for much of our future work.
Current Projects
IRC in Ecosystem-based Forest Management
Maintaining ecological resilience through ecosystem-based forest management
The overall goal of the Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Ecosystem-based Forest Management (EBM) is to provide the scientific knowledge basis for development of forest management approaches to improve the resilience of forest ecosystems, and the diversity of values they provide, under climate change.
Tree Diversity and Ecosystem Function
IDENT Freiburg
The International Diversity Experiment Network with Trees (IDENT) is a network of Biodiversity - Ecosystem Functioning (BEF) experiments in North America and Europe coordinated by Dr. Alain Paquette and Dr. Christian Messier. I first became involved with IDENT while working as a postdoc with Christian Messier and went on to help establish IDENT Freiburg with colleagues M. Scherer-Lorenzen and J. Bauhus.
BIOTREE BECHSTEDT, Summer 2017. Photo credit: Kyle Kovach.
Between 2014 - 2018 I was responsible for all aspects of the experiment. I currently have publications in the works on the relationship between aboveground productivity, tree diversity and soil resource manipulation. The main characteristics of IDENT within TreeDivNet are the focus on the early years of tree development, the role of functional diversity, and BEF relationships over stress gradients. The experiment consists of seven sites: six in temperate ecoregions, one in a Mediterranean region. In Freiburg, we manipulate aspects of soil resources in addition to functional diversity through the annual addition of nitrogen and phosphorus to test how effects of tree diversity on ecosystem functions such as productivity are moderated by differences in resources.
PhD student Kyle Kovach (University of Freiburg) is also examining the potential for drone-based RGB and hyperspectral imaging for describing canopy properties and tree growth (TreeSpec Project, PI Charles Nock, co-PI Michael Scherer-Lorenzen).
Effects of climate change on boreal forests
My research explores how climate change influences boreal forest composition and structure. I co-authored a national-scale analysis predicting strong increases in forest-fire occurrence in Canada in response to climate warming (Wotton et al. 2010). Warming and associated changes in fire regimes are a key sustainability issue for both ecosystems and human health around the world and our paper continues to be frequently cited (41 citations in 2018). Together with a very motivated undergraduate student, Fabian Sittaro, we utilized 30 years of provincial scale inventory data to test for evidence of northward tree species range expansion, after being inspired by work by K. Zhu on tree species ranges in the eastern United states (see Zhu et al. 2011, GCB 18: 1042-1052). Our paper represents one of the few large-scale empirical tests of changes in tree species range limits with climate warming. As we found little evidence of tree species range expansion and tracking of changing climate, our results support predictions that species are likely to become increasingly maladapted to local climate in the absence of range expansion.