Lab Members

Graduate Students

Stephanie McFarlane

I am interested in plant community assembly and restoration and related impacts on pollinators and pollination services. I am working to better understand how different management regimes affect restored tallgrass prairie plant and insect communities. This work is a collaboration between our lab and the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) as well as Claudio Gratton and Jade Kochanski at UW-Madison.

Email: mcfarlane [at] wisc.edu

Katherine T. Charton

A portrait of Katherine Charton. The portrait is drawn by Liz Kozik and features an oak savanna in the background.

I am broadly interested how climate, disturbance, and their interaction impact plant communities. To investigate this, I am currently working in two long-term field experiments in southern Wisconsin tallgrass prairies, one focused on the interaction of fire timing and reduced winter snow cover (started in 2016 by former graduate student Jon Henn) and the other on the interaction of woody control practices and summer drought (started in 2020 by myself). I collaborate with land managers at the UW-Arboretum, The Prairie Enthusiasts, Madison Audubon, and WI State Natural Areas program to facilitate experimental treatments and seek in return to better understand how land management practices can help us maintain prairie biodiversity and ecosystem services into the future.

Email: charton [at] wisc.edu

angelica bautista

Angelica joined the lab in Fall 2020. More information to come! Welcome Angelica!

Email: abautista3 [at] wisc.edu

MICHELLE HOMANN

I am interested in plant community and climate change ecology in fire-maintained grasslands with a specific emphasis on restoration outcomes. As anthropogenic influences continue to impact the persistence and composition of restored grasslands, I hope to understand
how prairie restoration can be made more effective in the long term. A changing
climate has the potential to alter interspecific interactions through impacts on phenological
timing, resource allocation, and establishment patterns in grassland plant species. Throughout my dissertation work, I plan to investigate the roles of fire timing, community assembly, and the overarching implications of a changing climate as drivers of plant community composition.

Email: mhomann [at] wisc.edu

Postdocs

Christopher Warneke

I am a plant ecologist interested in rare species and invasive species, and am driven by what makes populations at these ends of the abundance spectrum tick. I have worked primarily within restored habitat systems, as we can use experimental techniques to directly test ideas about species rarity and growing populations within these systems. In my position in the Damschen Lab, I am working primarily on data science and data management of the lab’s long-term data as well as how plant functional traits impact plant community patterns. You can find more details about me and find my CV [at my website].

Email: warneke [at] wisc.edu