Come work in our lab!

I'm hiring a full-time technician here at Portland State to conduct LANDIS-II vegetation modeling in my lab.  Our research will be focused on Fort Bragg, NC, where managers are concerned about the negative impacts of climate change and hurricanes on Red-cockaded woodpecker habitat. Though the work will be based out of PSU, we will be collaborating with professors at NC State University and Harvard Forest.

https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/dynamic-ecosystems-landscape-lab/research/ecosystem-model-comparison

The job will start on 2/1/19 and end when the grant ends on 9/30/18. The position is listed as “open until filled” but if I get a decent pool of applicants, I'll conduct interviews the week of 1/21/19. Details below.

https://jobs.hrc.pdx.edu/postings/28597

SOCCR-2 report released, Dr. Lucash co-authored the chapter on forests along with 21 other scientists

Dr. Lucash was one of the co-authors of Chapter 9: Forests in the Second State of the Carbon Report (SOCCR2).

SOCCR2 is an authoritative decadal assessment of carbon cycle science across North America, developed by over 200 experts from the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments, national laboratories, universities, private sector, and research institutions.

SOCCR-2 Report.PNG

New paper out in Forest Ecology and Management!

Our new paper from our NSF-funded Klamath grant (https://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/klamath-climate-and-fire/) was just published on-line.

This paper was truly a collaborative effort. The writing was led by Terry Marcey, NSF REU student in our lab, fieldwork was conducted by Maria Lopez Ortiz (Paraguay) and Jeff Shatford (BC), the study was designed by David Hibbs (OSU emeritus) and writing/mentoring was conducted by Melissa and Jonathan Thompson (Harvard Forest).

Our work shows that:

  • Management had no impact on Douglas-fir regeneration, the main species of concern in the region

  • Aspect (North vs. South-facing) overwhelmed management’s ability to influence composition and Douglas-fir regeneration

  • Managers should tailor post-fire management practices based on both objectives and aspect.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112718309095

Featured in the media:

https://www.pdx.edu/clas/news/psu-study-finds-salvage-logging-and-planting-are-not-necessary-regenerate-douglas-fir-after-klamath

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181031130921.htm

http://www.nwfirescience.org/biblio/post-fire-management-affects-species-composition-not-douglas-fir-regeneration-klamath

Dr. Lucash visits SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, NY

I met with many students and faculty in the Env Biology and Forestry departments at SUNY-ESF and gave a seminar on my research. It was great to see faculty I hadn’t seen in years (Russ Briggs and Tom Horton!!) and meet some new (and impressive) faculty at ESF. My host, Dr. Don Leopold, was awesome, laying out the “red carpet. He even treated me to a giant margherita to end my 2-week soujourn to the east coast. It was an exhausting trip, but also a lot of fun!

ESF_Seminar.jpg


Our REU student teaches middle school students about climate change

23192887_10156014414631122_351428188_n.jpg

In Nov 2017, Terry Marcey, senior at PSU and REU student on our Klamath grant, lead a climate change outreach activity with students at Stayton Middle School in Stayton, OR. The classroom experiment was carried out in Nikita Noelcke’s and Lindsey Kaufman’s 6th grade classrooms. The activity that he carried out consisted of creating aluminum foil models of Antarctica, its mountains, and its ice shelves. We then created a slime solution from Elmer’s glue and borax, which had a viscosity that was meant to mimic the flow of ice towards the ocean on Antarctica. The students placed the slime on the model continent, removed the foil walls that represented the ice shelves, and observed the flow of ice to the oceans. We then looked at time lapse images of the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002. We ended the activity by asking students what they thought they could do in their own lives to reduce the impacts of climate change. The activity that we performed was found on the Climate, Literacy, and Energy Awareness Network’s website:

www.cleanet.org/resources/42699.html

Fieldwork in Interior Alaska

Fieldwork began in June for the Interior Alaska project looking at impacts of increased fire frequency and climate change on boreal forests. Shelby spent the month collecting vegetation data in upland black spruce forests with Dr. Brian Buma (Univ. Colorado-Denver) and Katherine Hayes (PhD student at Univ. Colorado-Denver).  As of today, Shelby finished her work in the field and will be working at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis until she starts her PhD program at PSU in September. 

Shelby standing in a former black spruce-dominated stand that burned twice over a 60 year period. 

Shelby standing in a former black spruce-dominated stand that burned twice over a 60 year period.