Research

I focus on interdisciplinary questions about how populations and communities respond to climate change and biodiversity loss—and how management and policy decisions can support ecological resilience. To address complex environmental challenges, I work alongside experts from diverse fields—including social science, ecophysiology, and civil engineering—to integrate ecological data with applied policy and management solutions.

Explore My Research Themes

Habitat Fragmentation & Population Resilience

Climate Adaptation & Navigating Maladaptation

Plant Sourcing & Collaborative Ecosystem Restoration

Range Shifts & Science Translation

Solar Ecosystem Services & Stakeholder Engagement

Iconic wildlife of Minnesota

Related publications

Waananen, A., A. B. Dykstra, L. K. Richardson, S. W. Nordstrom, R. Thoen, S. Wagenius, R. G. Shaw. 2024. Juvenile mortality overwhelms benefits of mate density for reproductive fitness. The American Naturalist 203.6: E188-E199.

Beck, J., A. Waananen, S. Wagenius. 2023. Habitat fragmentation decouples fire-stimulated flowering from plant reproductive fitness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120.39: e2306967120.

Waananen, A., J. Ison, G. Kiefer, S. Wagenius. 2018. Mating opportunity increases with synchrony of flowering among years more than synchrony within years in a non-masting perennial. The American Naturalist 192: 379-388.

Waananen, A. J.J. Beck, R.G. Shaw, S. Wagenius. Asynchrony, isolation, and the fine-scale processes underlying mate-finding Allee effects in fragmented populations. In preparation.

Habitat Fragmentation & Population Resilience

The tallgrass prairie was once a vast, continuous ecosystem across North America. Today, less than 1% of that native landscape remains, leaving plant populations to contend with small, isolated habitat fragments. For my dissertation, I investigated how habitat fragmentation impacts the genetic structure and reproductive ecology of tallgrass prairie plants, with the goal of informing strategies to reconnect these isolated populations.

Approach & Collaboration

Working alongside collaborators from the Echinacea Project, I leveraged long-term observational datasets and designed field experiments to study the reproductive ecology of narrow-leaved purple coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia).

Key Insights & Management Applications

Plants act locally. We found that plants primarily interact at a localized scale with their immediate neighbors. High plant density and synchronous flowering are critical drivers of reproductive success and long-term population stability.
Make a neighborhood. This is encouraging for conservation, as local “neighborhood” factors can be actively managed. Strategic restoration planting designs and management techniques—such as prescribed burning to synchronize flowering—can directly improve population resilience in fragmented landscapes.

Related publications

Waananen, A.*, S.P. Reed*, D. Lobo*, P. Hancock, J. J. Hellmann. We need to talk about maladaptation. Climatic Change 179.84. *Co-first authors.

Waananen, A.*, Charton, K. T.*, & Hellmann, J. J. (2026). What climate adaptation can learn from evolutionary adaptation. Conservation Biology, e70343. *Co-first authors.

Facilitation Guide for Workshops or Conference Sessions on Maladaptation. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6D3H2

Climate Adaptation & Navigating Maladaptation

Taking action to cope with the effects of climate change comes with inherent risks. Decisions must be made today about an uncertain future, often requiring a departure from the status quo. When environmental strategies fall short or cause unintended consequences—known as maladaptation—communities bear the costs, and practitioners face the fallout. This risk can have a chilling effect on the pursuit of necessary climate action

In a recent collaborative paper, an interdisciplinary cohort of researchers and I tackle this issue head-on. Drawing from insights across the social and natural sciences, we framework how intentional, proactive dialogue about maladaptation can both reduce the risk of project missteps and improve organizational learning when they do occur.

Key Insights

Dialogue is key. Open communication is a crucial component of shifting culture from avoiding risk to actively managing it.

Community-engaged planning prevents missteps. Integrating ecological data with social science perspectives can help anticipate—and prevent—unintended community impacts before projects begin.

Transparent risk standards empower climate action. Risk-analysis tools give practitioners confidence to implement bold climate adaptation strategies.

Related materials

Waananen, A., D. Lobo, S. Galatowitsch, J. J. Hellmann. Cooperative native harvest networks yield benefits beyond access to diverse, affordable, and local seeds. National Native Seed Conference. February 2025. 🔗 See my poster here

Partners

Our partners for the ASCC Field Experiment include Saint Paul Parks & Recreation, Mississippi Park Connection, University of Minnesota, Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science - USDA Forest Service, National Park Service, and Colorado State University, and others.

Plant Sourcing & Collaborative Ecosystem Restoration

Restoring landscapes degraded by intensive land use, wildfires, or climate extremes requires immense volumes of native seed. However, regional and national shortages of diverse, locally suited, and cost-effective seed remain a critical bottleneck for ecological restoration. My work investigates how collaborative structures and adaptive management can overcome these resource constraints.

Case Study: Native Seed Partnerships in Western Minnesota

Using qualitative methods and interviews, I evaluated a network of Native Seed Partnerships to understand how cooperative models can scale up conservation efforts. Our findings include:

Cooperation reduces restoration costs. By pooling resources and establishing an interagency cooperative structure, land managers successfully harvested diverse, local seed from collectively managed public lands, driving down procurement costs.
Partnerships have spillover benefits. The benefits of these networks extended beyond seed supply; the cooperative model strengthened professional relationships and communication channels between historically isolated regional entities.
Interagency collaboration maximizes public funding investments. These findings suggest that low-cost, cross-boundary cooperation holds immense potential for maximizing conservation outcomes in resource-limited management landscapes.

Field Experiment: Climate-Adaptive Reforestation

In a separate project, I am asking how climate-adaptive seed sourcing strategies for reforestation perform under unpredictable spring weather conditions.

We are building on the partnership-based Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) experiment at Crosby Farm Regional Park to test the cold hardiness of tree species sourced from various climate zones.
This work seeks to provide land managers with data on how non-local seed sources handle late season cold snaps, minimizing the risks of adaptive forestry.

Paper birch seedlings sourced from populations across Minnesota within a field experiment to test how intaspecific variation shapes climate-driven species range shifts.

The USGS CAP Fellows Team in Santa Barbara, September 2025

📢 Catch us on the road: We will be presenting our initial findings this year at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting July 26-30, 2026 in Salt Lake City and The Wildlife Society Annual Meeting November 2, 2026 in Des Moines.

Range Shifts & Science Translation

Field Experiment: Intraspecific Variation & Range Dynamics

In partnership with the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC), we are investigating how genetic and trait variation within a species shapes its ability to shift its range.

We are tracking two contrasting species of high management priority in the Midwest: paper birch (a native species of conservation concern) and common tansy (a problematic invasive species). This project uses a large-scale field experiment distributed across four distinct Minnesota sites, using environmental treatments to simulate projected future climate conditions.
Management Implications: By capturing how different populations respond to climate stress, this research will directly inform regional seed-sourcing guidelines and help managers anticipate invasive species hot spots.
🔎 Status: Multi-year data collection is actively underway. Stay tuned for updates!

National Synthesis: Bridging Range Shift Science and Management

As part of the USGS Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral (CAP) Fellows Program, I collaborate with a national cohort of researchers to evaluate how range shift science is integrated into real-world conservation policy.

We are systematically analyzing state and federal conservation plans to map how scientific research is—or isn’t—currently translated into management action.
This synthesis aims to identify opportunities for better coordination across political boundaries, map critical knowledge gaps that practitioners face, and design frameworks for more effective science translation.

Resource & Publications

🔗 Solar Ecosystem Services Primer

🔗 Integrative Framework Two-Pager

🔗 Ecosystem Service Tool Overview

Partners

Great Plains Institute, Clean Energy Resource Team, Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association, Minnesota Department of Commerce

Solar Ecosystem Services & Stakeholder Engagement

Large-scale solar projects can offer communities far more than just clean energy—they possess significant potential to enhance local biodiversity, soil health, and water quality. Through the PV-SuCCESS Project (funded by the U.S. Department of Energy), I collaborated with a transdisciplinary team to develop a comprehensive framework that evaluates both the ecological and social co-benefits of solar site design and management.

Key Insights & Framework Design

Holistic metrics enable better siting and design. The framework integrates technical biophysical indicators—such as water quality, soil health, and pollinator habitat—with community-centered metrics like regional sense of place, visual character, and cultural value.
Stakeholder engagement is foundational. Rather than treating community input as an afterthought, this framework embeds stakeholder engagement directly into the early stages of site selection to ensure inclusive, sustainable land-use decisions.
Standardized tools empower choices. By offering a structured way to measure ecosystem co-benefits, this work helps local governments, developers, and communities move past conflict and co-design multi-functional landscapes.

Publications

Charton, K.T.*, A. Waananen*, S.A. Anderson, J.J. Hellmann. The potential for iconic species to support place-based conservation. In review at People and Nature. *Co-first authors.

Community-submitted interpretations of iconic Minnesota wildlife.

Iconic wildlife of Minnesota

“Iconic” species—those that hold place-based cultural, symbolic, or emotional significance—have immense potential to amplify the resonance of conservation messaging. To explore this potential, Dr. Katherine Charton and I conducted a large-scale public survey at the Minnesota State Fair to evaluate which species Minnesotans consider iconic, what traits predict that status, and how these perceptions drive conservation action.

Key Insights & Communication Strategies

Cultural symbols outweigh ecological familiarity. Minnesotans overwhelmingly identified plants and animals associated with aquatic habitats and cultural symbols (such as state mascots or license plates) as the most iconic—even if they struggled to name the specific organism.
Iconic identity inspires conservation action. A person's willingness to contribute time or money to environmental conservation was directly tied to an organism's perceived iconic status, rather than their objective scientific knowledge about it.
Meaning matters more than labels. These findings suggest that conservation strategies emphasizing cultural symbolism, place-based identity, and emotional connection are vastly more effective at inspiring public action than campaigns that focus solely on increasing baseline ecological literacy.

Participatory Art & Public Outreach

As a creative extension of the survey, we invited fairgoers of all ages to draw what wildlife they consider iconic to Minnesota. This interactive activity transformed a data collection site into a vibrant space for public engagement, allowing community members to visually express their personal connection to local ecosystems.

See my full list of publications at my Google Scholar.

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