Mark White, M.S.

Forest Ecologist

Mark White is the Forest Ecologist for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Prior to joining the Conservancy in 2004, Mark was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute.

His work focuses on biodiversity conservation in forested landscapes within Minnesota’s Superior Mixed Forest and Great Lakes Ecoregions. The science of forest conservation in this region involves integrating knowledge on natural forest variability, and ecologically based forest management along with information on recent and historical forest change.

Other interests include monitoring forest change, forest insects and disease, remote sensing of forested landscapes, effects of prescribed fire and the implications of climate change for forest conservation.

Feature Project

• Simulating the effects of climate change and disturbance on forest composition and rates of change in a northeastern Minnesota landscape using a spatially dynamic mode (in collaboration with Meredith Cornett, The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota; Robert Scheller and David Mladenoff, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Randy Swaty, The Nature Conservancy of Michigan; Patrick Gonzalez and Chris Zganjar, The Nature Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Initiative)
  
  The Nature Conservancy and partners in the northern lake states region have based conservation objectives on past climate and disturbance regimes. Projected rates of climate change may render objectives for future forest conditions obsolete. Conservation practitioners need new tools for setting priorities and developing strategies in the context of a changing climate. We are addressing three key questions:
  
   (1) How will species composition in forest ecosystems shift under different climate change scenarios?
   (2) What are the viability implications of forest ecosystem targets undergoing compositional change?
   (3) How should conservation practitioners adapt strategies and actions to address climate-induced alterations in composition?