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Daniel
G. Gavin
Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
University of Oregon
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Coring lake sediments in the Selkirk Range of
British Columbia |
Current
course web pages:
Past
courses:
Future
courses:
| Spring 2009: |
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Geog 323: Biogeography and Geog 423: Advanced Biogeography |
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Research interests:
I use interdisciplinary approaches to study the influence of natural
disturbances and climatic change on forest communities. I am especially
interested in using natural archives of past environments contained in
lake sediments and tree-rings.
 There are
graduate student opportunities in my lab on these topics. I
am also open to advising students on related topics. You convince me.
- Forest responses to
climatic change
Tree species will shift their ranges in
response to future climatic change, but the mode and tempo of such
changes is
largely speculative. The duration of migrational lags during climatic
change depends upon dispersal rates, dispersal distances (existence of
refugial or disjunct populations), and colonization success. I address
these biogeographical questions using
statistical treatment of pollen and macrofossil data and quantitative
climate reconstruction.
Read
about the study system...
- Bioclimatic
envelope modeling
A study of climatic controls on forest
composition
during the Holocene should begin with an assessment of the current
controls on species distribution. One way to study climatic controls of
species distribution is bioclimatic envelope modeling: the prediction
of species
occurrence as a function of a small number of biologically meaningful
variables.
See
an example of bioclimatic modeling
- Scale-dependent
controls of disturbance regimes
The historical range of variability of
disturbance regimes is an important baseline to guide ecosystem
management and to aid studies of
ecosystem dynamics and species coexistence. For forest disturbances,
the observational
record does not adequately characterize this variability over time
spans
relevant to tree life cycles. Paleoecological methods, using proxy
evidence from lake sediment and soils, provide unique long-term data
for
reconstructing disturbance regimes.
- Tree-ring records
of forest decline
A persistent challenge to the study of
growth rates of tree species is attributing causal factors to long-term
growth trends. Factors affecting growth rates vary from simple
mechanisms such as stand dynamics and the natural growth trends of
trees, to insect outbreaks, soil nutrition, climate, and interactions
of all these factors.
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Equipment
in the paleoecology laboratory in the Environmental Change Reseach Group
- Field gear
- Lake sediment sampling: Livingstone corers,
surface corers, freeze corer, inflatable rafts and coring platform,
stainless steel casing and alloy drive rods.
- Aquatic sampling: water sampler, YSI
conductivity and dO2 probe, digital depth finder
- Forest ecology sampling: Garmin GPS,
increment borers
- Laboratory equipment
- Wet lab and fume hood for sediment chemical
analyses (pollen preparation, biogenic silica)
- Cold room with archiving racks for 300+
m of sediment core
- Balance
- Muffle furnace
- Centrifuges
- Water bath
- Spectrophotometer
- Magnetic susceptibility logger
- Sieving apparatus for batch-processing sediment cores (25 sample capacity)
- Compound microscopes (2), stereoscopes (3),
digital cameras for photomicroscopy, pollen reference collection
- Tree-ring measuring bench
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How to contact me:
E-mail:
Phone (with voice mail):
541 346 5787
Department office phone:
541 346 4555
Fax:
541 346 2067
Mailing address:
Department of
Geography
1251 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1251
Street address:
Department
office: Room 107 Condon Hall
Office: Room 110 Condon Hall
Condon Hall is at 1321 Kincaid St.
Laboratory location:
215, 216, and 217 Pacific Hall
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 Updated
December 2007. |