My past, present, and future research is guided by one overarching question: How does changing climate, human land use, and disturbance affect forested ecosystems?
I combine big data, observational and experimental approaches, field and greenhouse studies, and quantitative methods to address this question across temperate and boreal forests in North America. I compliment this work with natural history research on the structure and function of plant communities, from alpine tundra to deciduous forest understories.
Limitations to climate-driven range shifts for tree species in the northeastern u.s.
Our ability to predict tree species’ migrations under changing climate in complex mountainous regions is still rudimentary. While the regeneration of the boreal cold-tolerant conifers species (red spruce, balsam fir) appears to be shifting upslope across mountains in the northeastern United States, this is not true for dominant temperate deciduous species (sugar maple, American beech). Although edaphic factors (soil pH, mycorrhizae) explain some of this deciduous species’ ‘failure to migrate’, an empirical model is needed to integrate fine-scale seedling establishment with intermediate-scale seed dispersal to better understand tree regeneration under changing climate.
As a post-doctoral research associate with the Plant Ecology lab at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, I will integrate field and greenhouse experiments with field observations across a large, well-established network of sites in the northeast to understand potential limitations to tree species migrations with climate change. This three-year project is funded by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative and will be completed in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, with support from Northeast Wilderness Trust and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Effects of changing climate and wildfire in subalpine forests of the mountain west
Forest plant communities in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) are well adapted to fires occurring every ~100-300 years. However, climate and fire regimes are changing. Greater area burned, increasingly frequent fire, and longer fire seasons together with warming and drying climate are contributing to reduced postfire tree establishment and little to no forest recovery in some places. When forests don’t come back, what comes back instead? As these changes continue through the end of this century, what will future landscapes of the GYE look like?
Answering these questions was central to my dissertation research in the Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To do so, I’ve assessed plant community responses to anomalously short-interval (<30 years) fire and quantified community composition in areas of poor postfire forest recovery following the historic 1988 Yellowstone Fires. In the first project of my dissertation, I used decades of satellite imagery to determine the extent and distribution of areas of poor forest recovery 30 years after the 1988 fires. In summer 2022, three undergraduate field assistants and I spent six weeks visiting a subset of these areas to determine what, if not forest, is coming back.
Relevant publications
Ausavich^, Z. O. and N. G. Kiel. 2024. What the heart wants: adaptive significance of cordate leaf morphology in Arnica (Asteraceae). Western North American Naturalist in press.
Kiel, N. G., W. H. Romme, and M. G. Turner. 2023. Snag-fall patterns following stand-replacing fire vary with bole characteristics and topography in subalpine forests of Greater Yellowstone. Forest Ecology and Management 549:121585 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121485.
Kiel, N. G., K. H. Braziunas, and M. G. Turner. 2023. Peeking under the canopy: anomalously short fire-return intervals alter subalpine forest understory plant communities. New Phytologist https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19009.
Braziunas, K. H., N. G. Kiel, and M. G. Turner. 2023. Less fuel for the next fire? Short-interval fire delays forest recovery and interacting drivers amplify effects. Ecology e4042 https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4042.
Kiel, N. G., and M. G. Turner. 2022. Where are the trees? Extent, configuration, and drivers of poor forest recovery 30 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Forest Ecology and Management 524:120536 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120536.
forest plant community recovery following agricultural Land use
Central New York, as with much of the rest of the eastern United States, has an extensive history of agricultural use and land abandonment. In Onondaga County alone, upwards of 80% of present-day forest was once cleared for agriculture. However, despite forest recovery, plant communities in the understory, the most diverse layer of temperate forests, are depauperate relative to those in residual, uncleared forests. In particular, myrmecochorous species who have their seeds dispersed by ants are largely lacking.
Past research I conducted while attending the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) sought to determine whether this ant-plant mutualism could explain, in whole or in part, the conspicuous lack of myrmecochorous plant species in post-agricultural forests.
Relevant publication
Kiel, N. G., G. R. Griffiths, and G. G. McGee. 2020. Can disruption of an ant-plant mutualism explain lack of recovery of forest herbs in post-agricultural forests of New York? Northeast Naturalist 27(2):215-228 https://doi.org/10.1656/045.027.0204.