Ailene Ettinger
As an ecologist and conservation biologist, I am inspired and fascinated by the diversity of species on Earth, how species interact with their environment and other organisms, and what role we humans can play in helping them thrive. Much of my work focuses on how climate change and urbanization affect populations to ecosystems, including the benefits we experience from nature and how those benefits are distributed.
I have broad interests and have worked in diverse systems ranging from Pacific Northwest forests and tropical bee communities in coffee farms to urban forests, mangroves, and peatlands around the world. I use field experiments, observational monitoring, meta-analysis, and statistical models as my primary research tools, and am committed to open and inclusive data practices and research approaches.
News & Updates
February 2024: Our first publication from Greening Research In Tacoma, a community-based research initiative focused on environmental and human wellbeing effects of urban trees, is out! Check it out!
April 2023: There is a great need to incorporate climate change resilience science and practice into forest management on the ground, but research isn't always done at local scales, making this challenging. Our publication Applying climate refugia to forest management and old-growth restoration, uses remote sensing approaches to identify climate change refugia and integrate climate change adaptation with other management.
July 2022: The timing of southern resident killer whale occurrence in the inland waters of Washington state (the central Salish Sea, near the San Juan Islands) has shifted much later in recent decades. Why? And why do phenological shifts like this matter? Read our paper on this, just out in Endangered Species Research.
April 2022: As a scientist at a conservation organization, I'd love to see more phenology research that overlaps with conservation strategies we can take to bolster climate change resilience- see more on this in the latest issue of Nature Climate Change.
September 2021: Don't forget to do the basic stats stuff you learned in your introductory stats class! In our new GCB paper, led by Lizzie Wolkovich, we show that observed declines in phenological sensitivity with warming may be a statistical artefact of fitting linear models to nonlinear processes.
July 2021: Flooding has inequitable impacts in Washington state (and elsewhere). Our study of inland flooding, led by Mathis Messager, shines a light on patterns of environmental injustice occurring at multiple scales: for example, Latinx residents comprise 8% of the state's population, but 16% of residents in flood zones.
March 2021: Climate change will cause shifts in the photoperiod that organisms experience- what are the implications of this? Check our paper in New Phytologist for more!
January 2021: Prioritizing conservation actions can be difficult; see our paper on one approach for identifying high-priority areas for preservation and restoration to benefit coho salmon.
December 2020: Photoperiod undoubtedly affects spring phenology, but teasing out its role and how it interacts with temperature is difficult with observational data since both cues increase linearly during the spring in many temperate areas. See an interesting paper on the timing of wood growth onset and a response I wrote with Sarah Elmendorf for more on this.
October 2020: I'm excited that our paper on how temperature and photoperiod drive tree budburst is available in Nature Climate Change. Check it out and let me know what you think! If you want to learn some of the backstory, read our Behind the Paper piece and Lizzie Wolkovich's more extensive musings on the work, which is ongoing in her lab.
June 2020: I urge you to consider participating in #ShutDownAcademia#ShutDownSTEM!
April 2020: It's spring, which is a great time to observe phenology, especially since we are all at home, social distancing. I bet there's a lot happening, even in your backyard!
October 2019: I'm thrilled to have started a new position as the Quantitative Ecologist at The Nature Conservancy in Washington state!
January 2019: Thinking about doing a field experiment to understand biological effects of climate change? You should check out our new paper on how climate change experiments actually alter climate
Contact Information:
Ailene K. Ettinger, PhD
Quantitative Ecologist
The Nature Conservancy, Washington
ailene.ettinger@tnc.org
