FULL PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE CHAIR Department of Integrative Biology University of Wisconsin-Madison Email: damschen [at] wisc.edu Phone: 608-262-2636
As an ecologist and conservation biologist, I am interested in how local and regional ecological processes affect species diversity with a particular emphasis on how human-induced global changes affect their relative importance. My approach lies at the intersection of basic and applied ecology, using long-term datasets and large-scale experiments from terrestrial plant communities to test basic theory with relevance to applied conservation management. Current projects in the Damschen Lab include:
- How connectivity affects plant community dynamics
- How habitat arrangement affects seed dispersal
- How local and landscape factors affect community restoration
- Understanding ecological contingency in climate change effects
- What controls edaphic endemic plant diversity
- If species functional traits can predict responses to global change
- Relationships among functional traits
Our study sites include tallgrass prairies and oak savannas of the midwest, southeastern longleaf pine woodlands (Savannah River Site, SC; Fort Bragg, NC; Fort Stewart, GA), and rocky outcrop communities in southwestern Oregon and the Ozarks.
Portrait courtesy of Liz Kozik.
Damschen Research Lab 