Archives: March2010

• Plant Communities

  
  
  
  

  Continuing with the series for UBC Celebrate Research Week, Lindsay introduces Dr. Gary Bradfield:

  Dr. Gary Bradfield is an Associate Professor with the UBC Department of Botany where he researches and lectures on plant community ecology.

  Dr. Gary Bradfield writes:

  Plant communities of forests, grasslands, and wetlands form a living tapestry that clothes the broad spectrum of terrestrial landscapes in which we live. The diversity of these communities, both in species composition and vegetation structure, provides enormous ecological benefits to a myriad of other, non-plant, species, and immeasurable social and economic values to human society. One of our great challenges for the 21^st century will be to deepen our respect and understanding of plant diversity to ensure its rightful protection into the future.

  There are currently four ongoing research collaborations in my lab:

  Climate change impacts on BC grasslands (image 1). As part of a large interdisciplinary team, we (graduate student Robbie Lee co-supervised by Drs. Gary Bradfield and Maja Krzic) will be examining the extent of invasive plant species in grassland communities and developing predictions of directions and rates of expansion of invasive species as future warming occurs.

  Vegetation ecology of riparian buffers (image 2) after logging in high elevation forests. Spearheaded by Dr. Lyn Baldwin and graduate students Christine Petersen and Scott Black, we are examining relationships between the width of uncut strips of forest along streams (“buffer strips”) and the diversity and re-colonization potential of the plant species they contain.

  Vegetation responses to peatland re-wetting in Québec (image 3 of Andromeda polifolia taken by Steve Henstra in Yukon, but the species also grows in Québec). Linking to the Peatland Ecology Research Group at Université Laval, we (graduate student Steven Henstra co-supervised by Drs. Gary Bradfield and Line Rochefort) will be investigating the trajectory and timing of community-scale vegetation change resulting from hydrological restoration in several historically mined peatlands.

  Post-fire succession in Interior Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) forests of southern BC. With recent graduate students Kaeli Stark and Scott Black, and in collaboration with Dr. André Arsenault, we are examining how plant communities re-assemble in the early stages after the devastating forest fires of 2003. The results are offering guidance for post-fire management actions such as seeding and salvage logging. Species such as Chamerion angustifolium subsp. angustifolium, shown in the image above (image 4), is a pioneering species that colonizes after forest fires, hence its common name fireweed.

• soleildujour: Le Soleil du Jour a maintenant sa page Facebook : http://facebook.soleildujour.com

  soleildujour: Le Soleil du Jour a maintenant sa page Facebook : http://facebook.soleildujour.com

• soleildujour: La photo du coucher de soleil du 6 mars 2010 a été publiée. Elle a été prise à Kamouraska – http://www.soleildujour.com

  soleildujour: La photo du coucher de soleil du 6 mars 2010 a été publiée. Elle a été prise à Kamouraska – http://www.soleildujour.com