Undergraduate students interested in pursuing senior thesis work (Env. Sci. or ECB), or undergraduates interested in hourly lab technician positions are encouraged to contact Professor Higuera More
Paleoecology and Fire Ecology Lab
Forest and Fire Ecology in the Context of Environmental Change
Research in the Paleoecology and Fire Ecology Lab focuses on understanding the interactions among climate, vegetation, and fire regimes over a range of spatial and temporal scales. The ultimate goal of this work is to provide a long-term context for ongoing environmental change and inform models used to predict the consequences of future environmental change.-
Current themes:
- Climate-vegetation-fire interactions across a range of temporal scales in boreal forest, subalpine forest, and arctic tundra ecosystems
- Understanding the origin of sediment-charcoal records and developing analytical methods for reconstructing fire regimes with sediment-charcoal data
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Tools:
- The lab uses lake sediments, tree rings, observational records, and numerical models to study ecosystems from time scales spanning the past several decades to the past 15,000 years.
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Locations:
- Alaska, Canada, U.S. Rocky Mountains, and Tasmania
MS Assistantship Available
Arctic Paleoecology and Fire Ecology: fire history of Alaskan tundra ecosystems. Contact Professor Higuera via e-mail if interested. More
RECENT NEWS
March 2013
Jesse Morris presented a talk titled "How can pollen and geochemical evidence from lake sediments provide context for the climate-mediated bark beetle outbreak occurring in Western North America?" at the Pacific Climate Group Workshop in Pacific Grove, California.
January 2013
1. Paper out in Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences lead by former CNR MS student Nolan Brewer, titled "Fuel Moisture Influences on Fire-altered Carbon in Masticated Fuels: An Experimental Study."
2. Phil presented a talk titled "The changing nature of fire-climate relationships in the U.S. Northern Rockies, 1902-2008" at the VII Southern Connections Congress, in Dunedin, New Zealand.
3. As part of the WildFIRE PIRE project, Phil, Jesse Morris, recent U Idaho graduate Conamara Burk, and Australian collaborators completed a successful field campaign collecting sediment records of past fire and vegetation change in the Central Plateau of Tasmania. Photos from the trip are here.