Daniel L. Perret

News & Updates

July 2019: A collaboration led by Kyle Rosenblad is just out in Nature Climate Change! Kyle used information from the native, naturalized, and horticultural ranges of 55 island-endemic conifer species to see whether niche disequilibrium can buffer these species from climate change in their native range. Turns out, by 2070 the native islands of many of these species will experience climates where the species can either not survive or can survive, but not reproduce. The severity of the forecast depends on the size of the species' native island, and is driven by the relationship between realized, fundamental, and tolerance niche sizes. There are lots of important conservation implications here: for example, the only climate refugia for some species will lie in areas where they are problematic invasives -- how do we wrangle these kinds of tricky situations?

June 2019: Returned from a week of spring skiing in the Wind River Range in central Wyoming. Sad to see all the dead whitebark pine on the west slope of the range, though some of the surviving high-elevation stands are spectacularly beautiful. Also saw lots of recruitment in spite of the widespread mortality. Three pictures to share -- a huge dead whitebark above Hobbs Lake, a campsite below a large and still healthy one, and one of several wolverine tracklines we ran into:

Feb 2019: Passed qualifying exam for Brown EEB

Jan 2019: I had a great time at the International Biogeography Society meeting in Malaga with other (current & past) Sax Lab members and new friends!

Dec 2018: We're very excited to have this paper out in Global Ecology & Biogeography! Naturalized pine species are not constrained to the climates of their native ranges, and the degree to which they tolerate novel climates can be predicted by the size of their native climatic niche.