THE WOODS LAB

Ellie Olpin went to Long Beach solo to represent the Woods lab. Ellie presented on our research examining the impacts of forest silviculture and succession on understory bryophyte communities. I heard their presentation was amazing - way to go Ellie!

The first lag of my field season was successful. Finn (can you find him?) joined me to resurvey my long-term seedling plots in the Hoh rainforest. Then Dr. Sarah Hewitt, incredible science writer and photographer, joined me at Lake Cushman to help with resurveying my long-term canopy plots when a ladder broke, I fell 10 feet, broke my ankle and am now in recovery. What a way to end a sabbatical!

Beatrice Bugos presented the education component of her fossil work, Ellie Olpin came for a day, and former Woods lab member Kaela Hamilton presented her Masters research on the use of overpasses by wildlife. I presented on a community assembly field experiment in collaboration with Michelle Spicer.

Congratulations to former post-doc Michelle Spicer who is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LeHigh University! If you are interested in doing graduate research with her, here is a link to her website: Home (weebly.com)

The Woods lab this season was phenomenal. With 5 students and 3 projects, everyone worked so well together and so hard! Ellie Olpin and Reisha Foertsch examined fungal communities in tree seedling roots on nurse logs and the forest floor to test several hypotheses about the benefits of nurse logs for forest regeneration. Olivia Brech and Kaia Doan expanded the scope of the lab by testing the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis in the intertidal zone. Abby Steward and I set up permanent plots in various sizes of bigleaf maple trees in a new field site in Olympic rainforests to test the Species Accumulation Model. 

Michelle Spicer and I attended ATBC in Cartagena Columbia. Michelle presented our biotic interactions paper and I presented on the impact of a nutrient-addition canopy field experiment on vascular epiphytes in collaboration with Dr. Cat Cardelús. It was wonderful to reconnect with so many folks and to have such enriching talks about tropical systems!

The Woods lab had a very successful field season with a diversity of projects! Ellie and I spent many field days surveying bryophytes to examine the influence of forest management on bryophyte communities in an LTEP site on the Olympic peninsula; we all went fossil hunting in eastern Washington for Beatrice's project reconstructing the ancient plant environment from plant fossil assemblages from the Cretaceous to the Eocene (thanks to Whitney and the Slater Museum of Natural History for access to their collection!); Peter climbed trees with Michelle to test the influence of successional pathways and orientation on epiphyte community structure; and Anna turned her 2000 mile Yukon canoe trip into an opportunity to examine microplastics in the river (in collaboration with other faculty).

My first paper with NSF-funded post-doc Michelle Spicer is out! Michelle spearheaded this paper and did an incredible job. We state the importance of biotic interactions in epiphyte ecology and evolution through a systematic review of the literature that summarizes our current knowledge and highlights gaps in our understanding. We also provide a conceptual framework for future directions. Congratulations Michelle on a great piece of work.

Congrats to Beatrice Bugus for being nominated to give an oral presentation of her summer research that she did with post-doc Michelle Spicer at the Murdock conference this year. Great job Beatrice!

Our first paper on our nurse log research is out! Thanks to undergraduate students Katy and Kimmy for their dedication to this research even when cold and soaking wet! We found that bryophyte communities (mosses and liverworts) change through succession as nurse logs decay, and these changes influence tree seedlings differently: at early stages they help the seedlings and at late stages they inhibit them. We need experimental data to confirm these hypotheses so stay tuned for more research!

Congrats to Rei Ishii for being nominated by the Biology Department to present his thesis research on network analyses of slime molds at the Murdock conference this year.

Our latest papers on Ethiopian Church Forests came out this year. They show that human disturbance influences physical and chemical soil properties, and similarity in species composition across dispersal syndromes more than distance between forests. Robyn Thomas, a recent UPS graduate, is a co-author on the paper.

We had several attendees at ESA this summer. Current undergraduate student Sean Grealish presented his reseasrch on temperate forest nurse logs, current post-doc Michelle Spicer presented some of her epiphyte work from Panama, recent graduate Kaela Hamilton presented her thesis research on epiphyte distributions, and I presented my own nurse log research. 

While it was definitely a challenging field season this year with covid-19, we managed to spend several weeks out in the Olympic rainforest without incident thanks to our team social distancing, wearing masks, and sanitizing everything! Nisa and Sean collected a lot of data for their projects, Michelle and Ellen (our field assistant) set up the epiphyte experiment, I collected my seedling data, and Rei worked away in the lab for his research.

NSF-funded post-doc Michelle will lead a project examining the assembly and development of epiphyte communities in Panama and in the Pacific Northwest using an experimental approach. Michelle joined the lab in February and has become an integral member of the lab and an excellent mentor to students. Learn more about her here: https://spicerme.weebly.com/ Welcome Michelle!

Kaela presented her thesis research on the drivers of epiphyte distributions in northern temperate rainforests and won the best poster award. Go Kaela!

The first paper from the Woods lab on temperate rainforest epiphytes has been published with two undergraduate students McKinley Nevins and Emma Didier. This paper examined the broad-scale distribution patterns of non-vascular epiphytes in bigleaf maple trees.

We had a successful field season this summer. Kaela continued her fine-scale epiphyte surveys, Sean joined the lab to age nurse logs using dendrochronology, and I resurveyed my seedling plots. 

Our most recent paper on Ethiopian Church Forests has been published. This paper highlights the dilemma faced by these forests: the forests are threatened by human use but humans have protected them for thousands of years and depend on them. See the media article here for more.

Anna Marchand and Kaela Hamilton represented the Woods lab at the Murdock conference this year. Anna presented her nurse log research and Kaela presented her epiphyte research.

Kimmy Ortmann represented the Woods lab at ESA this year in New Orleans. Kimmy presented her thesis research on forest floor rugosity and species diversity and I presented my epiphyte work from the Olympic rainforest. It was great to reconnect with old friends and colleagues and build some collaborations.

We had a successful field season this year. Anna worked on nurse logs and Kaela joined our epiphyte research. Our summer research was highlighted by the University of Puget Sound. You can read the article on "moss goggles" here.

McKinley Nevins presented her research on epiphyte distributions and Eric Hartel presented his research on fern distributions this year. Great job at representing the Woods lab this year.

Kimmy Ortmann presented her density-dependence research and Katy Maleta presented her research on the influence of nurse log bryophyte communities on tree seedlings. Robyn Thomas and Mairan Smith also came from UPS. I presented my epiphyte succession model. We had a blast!

We had a successful field season! McKinley Nevins, Kimmy Ortmann, and Micaela Seaver all did cool projects with epiphytes, and Eric Hartel did research on understory ferns. 

Two papers just came out. One is on the use of stone walls as a conservation tool in Ethiopian's Church Forests and the other is a model of primary succession in epiphytes. See the Publications tab.

Emma Didier presented her research on epiphytes and Kimmy and Katy presented their research on nurse logs. Thanks for representing the lab so well!

We just completed four projects in three weeks in the Olympic rainforest! My students (Kimmy Ortmann, Katy Maleta, Jeremy Wood, and Emma Didier) did great collaborative and independent work!

We completed our first field season on our NSF-funded research on the management of Ethiopian Church Forests. We were joined by Robyn Thomas (UPS student), Kate Bazany and Max Israelit (Colgate students), and Kelsey Jensen (Cornell grad student). 

Thanks for the Murdock Charitable Trust for the research grant to study epiphytes in northern temperate rainforests on the Olympic peninsula! This grant will provide research funds for me and two undergraduate students for the next two years.