Dr. Rebecca Snell
The Geography Colloquium Series presents Dr. Rebecca Snell on “Changing management can mitigate the impacts of climate-driven woody encroachment in high-elevation pasture woodlands” on Friday, March 6, at 3:05 p.m. in Clippinger Lab 119.
Snell is Assistant Professor of Environmental & Plant Biology at Ohio University. Her research is primarily focused on understanding how forests will respond to climate change and disturbances. She uses a variety of methods, such as fieldwork statistical modelling, and process based models to project forest responses and inform management decisions.
Abstract: Woody encroachment is occurring all over the globe, largely driven by changing environmental conditions and management practices. In the European Alps, high-elevation pastures have been maintained as open landscapes due to decades of summer grazing. Although climate change and changing management practices are expected to accelerate woody encroachment into these pastures, there are multiple, interacting factors that need to be considered. I will be presenting the results from a study that used a process-based dynamic vegetation model that simultaneously considered multiple factors (i e how changes in temperature and precipitation impact woody and herbaceous plants, and the interactions between grazing and vegetation) to project woody encroachment in alpine pastures.
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