Nathan Stephenson
Biography
Earth’s vast forests provide human communities with irreplaceable goods and services such as carbon sequestration, hydrologic regulation, clean water, biodiversity, critical wildlife habitat, wood products, and recreational and spiritual opportunities. An overarching goal of Dr. Nathan Stephenson's research is to improve scientists' and land managers' ability to understand, forecast, and adapt to the effects of ongoing global changes – particularly changing climatic and disturbance regimes – on forests. Accordingly, most of his research falls in three broad, complementary themes: (1) improving mechanistic understanding of forest and carbon dynamics, (2) detection, attribution, and interpretation of forest changes, and (3) adaptations to rapid global changes. The last theme extends well beyond forests, to natural areas in general.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Forest ecology
- Global change biology
- Climate change
- Fire ecology
- Natural areas management
- Adaptation
EDUCATION
- Ph.D., Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, 1988
- B.S., Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, 1979
Science and Products
Adaptations to Rapid Change
Management decisions are made at the intersection of facts and values, and WERC's role is to assist decision-makers by bringing the best available science to the table. Dr. Nathan Stephenson seeks to help managers and policy makers reassess their missions in light of rapid and unprecedented changes, develop broad concepts relevant to adapting to such changes, and provide hands-on assistance...
Improving Understanding of Forest and Carbon Dynamics
The community's ability to understand and predict changes in forests and their feedbacks to the global carbon cycle increasingly relies on models spanning several scales of biological organization – from tree leaves to entire forested landscapes. Yet many model assumptions about key processes – such as tree growth and mortality – require long-term data that are sometimes difficult and time-...
Detection, Attribution, and Interpretation of Forest Changes
Dr. Nathan Stephenson and colleagues seek to determine what changes are occurring in forests, why they are occurring, and what they mean. For example, they have documented a long-term, apparently climatically-induced increase of tree mortality rates in otherwise undisturbed old forests across the western U.S., implying that these forests could become net sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide...
Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station is home to research programs that focus on wildfire patterns in Southern California, and the effects of drought on Sierra Nevada forests. Select the "Science" tab for a more comprehensive summary.
How Is A 1,600-Year-Old Tree Weathering California's Drought? (NPR)
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, California — Nate Stephenson was a guest on NPR's "All Things Considered." The segment featured collaborative research on the drought's effects on giant sequoias.
Hotter Droughts, Forests and the Leaf to Landscape Project
California's hotter droughts are a preview of a warmer future world.