Monica Turner

Professor

turnermg@wisc.edu

608-262-2592

Birge Hall

Lab Page

Research

Ecology

Google Scholar

Our research emphasizes landscape ecology (the study of interactions between spatial patterns and ecological processes) and ecosystem ecology (the study of flows of energy and matter through organisms and the environment). We are primarily a terrestrial ecology group but we also study land-water interactions. We pursue question-driven research in remote wilderness settings and in agricultural and urban landscapes in which we live and work. We use field studies, experiments, spatial analyses, and computer simulation modeling to understand where, when and why ecosystems change. Understanding how climate change will alter the landscapes around us is also a common theme. Landscape ecology offers new concepts, theory and methods that are revealing the importance of spatial patterning on the dynamics of interacting ecosystems. Our research is united by a focus on pattern and process while we examine a diverse range of topics.

A photo of a landscape with grasses growing up over a burnt log in the foreground and a stand of burnt tree trunks in the background. — We are studying effects of changing fire regimes, including when two high-severity fires burn the same location in less than 20 years (fewer trees recover). Photo by M. G. Turner

A photo of a trail cutting through a forest of skinny trunked pine trees. — Greater Yellowstone is dominated by beautiful forests that are adapted to infrequent, high-severity fires. We focus on how these forests may be changing in the future. Photo by M. G. Turner.

Education

PhD, Ecology, University of Georgia

BS, Biology, Fordham University