Positions
Education
Teaching Areas
Undergraduate Programs
- Biology
- Environmental Science
Graduate Studies
- Environmental Science/Studies, MESc/MES
Graduate Supervision
Accepting Students for Supervision
School year
- 2026/27
- 2027/28
- 2028/29
Guidelines or Expectations for Prospective Students
I am looking for undergraduate and graduate students with a keen interest in forest ecology and management. In the forest resources laboratory we use field and lab-based techniques to explore hypotheses related to impacts of disturbance in boreal and Great Lakes-St Lawrence forests. Students are expected to be fully engaged with all aspects of research and to be committed to communication of results to the scientific community in the form of conference presentations and journal articles.
Supervised Theses / Projects
- Courtney Antram (MESc 2026) – Evaluation of δ18O of soil charcoal as an indicator of past forest fire severity. Co-supervised by with Dr. Elizabeth Webb, Department of Earth Sciences, Western University.
- Robert Belilse (BSc 2025) – Analysis of δ18O of Charcoal from Fire Scars in Red Pine as an Indicator of Burn Severity
- Dawson Meecham (MESc 2024) – Vegetation recovery on forest road segments in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and Boreal Regions of Ontario. Co-supervised by Dr. Doug Reid, Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystems Research, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
- Taylor Bottoms-Cau (BSc. 2023) – Cover and diversity of lichens and bryophytes on inactive forest roads in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence region.
- Kathleen Woodhouse (BSc 2022) – Investigating the divergence problem in tree species of the boreal forest of northeastern Ontario across a gradient of moisture regimes.
- Elizabeth Elliott (MESc 2021) – Reconstructing spatial patterns of fire intensity from remote sensing data and stable oxygen isotopes in wood char. Co-supervised by Dr. Elizabeth Webb, Department of Earth Sciences, Western University.
- Tegan McWhirter (MESc 2021) – Analyzing stable oxygen isotopes in wood char to reconstruct past fire conditions. Co-supervised by Dr. Elizabeth Webb, Department of Earth Sciences, Western University.
- Amanda Springer (MESc 2019) - Multivariate approach to describing the regeneration niche of Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh) in the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Forest.
Research
Research Interests
- Reconstruction of wildland fire severity
- Diversity and stability relationships in forests exposed to drought
- Distribution, abundance and regeneration of Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra)
- Responses of tree species to climate change in the Boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest regions
Collaborations / Affiliations
- Laboratory for Stable Isotope Sciences (LSIS) Western University (Fire Severity)
- Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (Fire Severity, Forest Roads Recovery)
- CRSNG-Alliance Trajectoire (Forest Succession)
- Silva 21 network (Black Ash)
- AWARE network (Forest Inventory)
Grants & Funding
- Forest composition trajectories in eastern Canada under the influence of global change (Co-investigator, PI Yan Boucher, UQAC). NSERC Alliance Project. 2024-27.
- Automated Road and Attribute Extraction from SPL Data (Co-investigator, PI Nicholas Coops, UBC). Forestry Futures Trust Ontario. 2021-23.
- AWARE (Assessment of Wood Attributes using Remote Sensing) Project (Coinvestigator, PI Nicholas Coops, UBC). NSERC Collaborative Research and Development Grant. 2014-2019.
Open to Media Inquiries
Publications
Wotherspoon, A.R. et al. 2026. A perspective on black ash decline in eastern North America: ecological insights, cultural importance, and urgent research needs. Environ. Rev. 34: 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2025-0198
McDonald, E., Webb, E.A., and Dech, J.P. 2025. Oxygen isotope values of charred tree bark as an indicator of forest fire severity. Trees, Forests and People, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2025.100786
McWhirter, T., Webb, E.A., and Dech, J.P. 2024. Differences in the intensity of past forest fire events inferred from stable oxygen isotope analysis of charred bark. Can. J. For. Res. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2024-0025
Morley, I.D. et al. 2023. Updating forest road networks using single photon LiDAR in northern Forest environments, Forestry https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpad021
Springer, A., and Dech, J.P. 2021. Regeneration of black ash (Fraxinus nigra Marsh.) in hardwood swamps of the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Forest Region. For. Chron. 97(3): 1-16.