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Lab group

Alex Ireland, Post-doctoral researcher Alex is now a postdoctoral scholar in Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State University, although he is still actively collaborating on projects with the lab. Selected recent publications: Ireland, A.W., R.K. Booth, S.C. Hotchkiss, & J.E. Schmitz. 2013. A comparative study of within-basin and regional peatland development: implications for peatland carbon dynamics. Quaternary Science Reviews 71: 85-95. Ireland, A.W., R.K. Booth, S.C. Hotchkiss, & J.E. Schmitz. 2012. Drought as a trigger for rapid state shifts in kettle ecosystems: implications for ecosystem responses to climate change. Wetlands 32: 989-1000. Ireland, A.W. & R.K. Booth. 2012. Upland deforestation triggered an ecosystem-state shift in a kettle peatland. Journal of Ecology 100: 586-596. Ireland, A.W. & R.K. Booth. 2011. Hydroclimatic variability drives episodic expansion of a floating peat mat in a North American glacial kettle. Ecology 92(1): 11-18.
Travis Andrews, PhD student Dissertation topic: Global change and water availability in the Northeast
Michael Clifford, PhD candidate Dissertation topic: Late Holocene drought and fire variability in North America inferred from peatland archives. Selected recent publications: Clifford, M.J., N.S. Cobb, and M. Buenemann. 2011. Long-term tree cover dynamics in a pinyon-juniper woodland: drought resets successional clock. Ecosystems 14:949-962 doi:10.1007/s10021-011-9458-2. Floyd, M.L., M. Clifford, N. Cobb, D. Hanna, R. Delph, P. Ford, and D. Turner. 2009. Relationship of stand characteristics to drought-induced mortality in piñon-juniper woodlands in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Ecological Applications 19:1223-1230.
Eric Klein, PhD candidate (co-advised with Zicheng Yu) Dissertation topic: Late Holocene peatland carbon accumulation and hydrology in Alaska. Selected recent publications: Klein, E.S., R.K. Booth, Z. Yu, B.G. Mark, & N.D. Stansell. In press. Hydrology-mediated differential response of carbon accumulation to late Holocene climate change at two peatlands in Southcentral Alaska. Quaternary Science Reviews. Klein, E., E.E. Berg, & R. Dial. 2005. Wetland drying and succession across the Kenai Peninsula Lowlands, south-central Alaska. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35: 1931-1941.
Katie LeBoeuf, MS student Thesis topic: Late Holocene vegetation-climate relationships in the Adirondack Lakes Region, northern New York.
Michelle Spicer, MS student A century-long experiment in forest planting: ecological history of the Lehigh Experimental Forest Plantation. Link to Michelle's research blog Link to Michelle's video proposal
Maura Sullivan, PhD candidate The role of short-term environmental variability in structuring testate amoeba communities. Selected recent publications: Sullivan, M.E. & R.K. Booth. 2011. The potential influence of short-term environmental variability on the composition of testate amoeba communities in Sphagnum peatlands. Microbial Ecology 62:80-93.

Former students

Graduate

Travis Andrews, MS 2012. Thesis title: Testate amoebae as hydrological proxies in the Florida Everglades. Travis is currently pursuing a PhD in the EES Department.

Alex Ireland, PhD 2012. Dissertation title: Assessing the senstivity of kettle ecosystems to climatic and anthropogenic disturbances. Alex still collaborates with our research group while he works as a post-doctoral researcher at Penn State University

Erin Markel, MS 2009. Thesis title: A comparative study of testate amoebae and δ13C of Sphagnum as surface-moisture proxies in Alaskan peatlands. Erin is currently a Project Scientist at Chesapeake Environmental Management, Inc.

Valerie Sousa, MS 2008. Thesis title: Drought, lake-effect snow, and the Late Holocene beech decline: a paleoecological study at Pinhook Peatland in northwestern Indiana.

Undergraduate (senior honor theses)

Kevin Barrett, BS 2012. Thesis title: A late Holocene record of moisture variability from a bog in southeastern Alaska.

John Powell, BA 2010. Thesis title: Controls on Radial Growth of Pinus strobus (white pine) on a Floating Peatland.