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I am a postdoctoral researcher with Steve Pacala at Princeton University. My main research interests are:
- The response of biological communities (particularly forests) to climate change, and feedbacks between climate and vegetation.
- Effects of natural disturbance, forest management, and land use on forest dynamics and carbon cycling.
- How species diversity is maintained in local communities, and how broad-scale diversity patterns are shaped by historical and ecological factors.
My current research focuses on developing mechanistic models of forest dynamics, and using the models to better understand successional and geographic variation in forest diversity, biomass, and productivity. The models are parameterized from individual-level observations of tree performance (e.g., growth and survival) and make predictions about community dynamics. Predictions are tested against forest chronosequence data. We parameterize the models using Bayesian and likelihood methods with data from the US Forest Service's FIA program, as well as light and growth measurements I have collected from a variety of forest communities in eastern and western North America. We are collaborating with Peter Reich (University of Minnesota) to incorpoate water limitation into the models using data collected across a soil moisture gradient in northern Wisconsin. |
Selected publications
Lichstein, J.W., C. Wirth, H.S. Horn, and S.W. Pacala. In press. Biomass chronosequences of U.S. forests: implications for carbon storage and forest management. In C. Wirth, M. Heimann, and G. Gleixner, eds. Old-growth forests: function and fate of a vanishing ecosystem type. Springer-Verlag
Purves, D.W., J.W. Lichstein, N. Strigul, and S.W. Pacala. 2008. Predicting and understanding forest dynamics using a simple, tractable model. PNAS (In press)
Wirth C., J.W. Lichstein, J. Dushoff, A. Chen, and F.S. Chapin III. 2008. White spruce meets black spruce: dispersal, postfire establishment, and growth in a warming climate. Ecological Monographs 78(4):489-505. pdf
Lichstein, J.W., J. Dushoff, S.A. Levin, and S.W. Pacala. 2007. Intraspecific variation and species coexistence. American Naturalist 170(6):807-818. pdf
Purves, D.W., J.W. Lichstein, and S.W. Pacala. 2007. Crown plasticity and competition for canopy space: a new spatially implicit model parameterized for 250 North American tree species. PLoS ONE 2(9):e870. pdf
Lichstein, J.W. 2007. Multiple regression on distance matrices: a multivariate spatial analysis tool. Plant Ecology 188(2):117-131. pdf
Lichstein, J.W., T.R. Simons, and K.E. Franzreb. 2002. Landscape effects on breeding songbird abundance in managed forests. Ecological Applications 12(3):836-857. pdf
Lichstein, J.W., T.R. Simons, S.A. Shriner, and K.E. Franzreb. 2002. Spatial autocorrelation and autoregressive models in ecology. Ecological Monographs 72(3):445-463. pdf
complete CV |
