Forest ThreatNet
Center Researchers Contribute to National Sustainability Check
Alaska’s unique ecological and cultural landscape—and the changes occurring in a shifting climate—provided a fitting backdrop for the 29th annual meeting of the US Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (US-IALE) in May. Eastern Threat Center researchers Kurt Riitters, Bill Hargrove, and Steve Norman; North Carolina State University cooperating scientist Kevin Potter; and other Center partners were among the approximately 300 scientists, land managers, and policy experts who shared knowledge at the meeting in Anchorage, themed “Cumulative Impacts and Landscape Initiatives: A Sustainability Check During Climate Change.”
“The US-IALE meeting is ideally suited for presentation of Center research because of the variety of audiences, the depth of the research expertise, and the large number of students attending,” says Riitters, who served as US-IALE president from 2012-2014. In addition to several research presentations, Center science and the ForWarn forest monitoring tool were prominently featured in a special symposium focused on integrating measurements and models of phenology in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. US-IALE celebrated Hargrove and partners from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) with the “Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology” award, and honored Riitters with a certificate of appreciation for his service.
Right: View from an urban park in Anchorage. Photo by Kurt Riitters, Eastern Threat Center. (Click to enlarge.)
Above: US-IALE president Janet Franklin (right) presents the "Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology" award to (l to r) Jitendra Kumar (ORNL), Hargrove, and Forrest Hoffman (ORNL). (Click to enlarge.)
