Restoration of UMR floodplain forest
Climate change will impact ecological communities via direct
effects on species performance, and by altering species
interactions and disturbance regimes. In the absence of
comprehensive information about which species interactions and
disturbances will prove critically sensitive to climate change,
an alternate strategy is to focus on those already known to have
strong effects on community dynamics.
My work evaluates how flooding – a form of disturbance directly affected by climate – impacts interactions that determine community structure and function in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) floodplain. Results from field experiments will be used in conjunction with larger-scale hydrodynamic models to predict the success of management actions across the landscape and under alternative hydrological regimes.
This work is being carried out in collaboration with my
students, UMESC scientists
Nathan De Jager and
Eileen Kirsch, my
UW-L colleague
Eric Strauss, and with the generous cooperation
of the Environmental Stewardship staff at the La Crescent Office
of the USACE, St. Paul District.