Postdoctoral Scientist

jallynch@life.uiuc.edu

• Curriculum Vitae (pdf file)

Long-term ecological trends in fire regimes, vegetation processes, and rapid climate change

My research interests focus on investigating long-term ecological trends in fire regimes, vegetation processes, and rapid climate change. Specifically, I examine climate, vegetation, and fire interactions and how their spatial patterns affect ecosystems in the North American boreal forest during the Holocene. My future interests in the boreal forest include understanding the processes controlling modern and long-term charcoal accumulation, vegetation history, and sediment deposition patterns. To interpret the fire-vegetation-climate interactions I will use a multi-proxy analysis of terrestrial plant fossils (e.g. pollen and charcoal) to asses fire and vegetation patterns and stable isotopes and geochemistry to study post-glacial changes in available moisture from lake sediments. In addition, studies of charcoal production, accumulation, and transport from modern controlled burns will aid in understanding long-term charcoal accumulation. I am particularly interested in examining how rapid climate change at the end of the last glacial maximum altered the distribution of plant communities and if disturbance mediated vegetation shifts. [Read more...]