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Doug Shinneman, Ph.D.

Border Lakes Postdoctoral Scientist

 

Doug Shinneman
© TNC

Doug Shinneman began working for the Conservancy in January 2006. Moving from the Rocky Mountains, where he recently completed his Ph.D. in disturbance ecology of piñon-juniper woodlands of western Colorado, and where he worked with science-based conservation organizations,

Dr. Shinneman brings expertise as a landscape ecologist and in non-profit management. His position is funded by the U.S.D.A. Forest Service Northern Research Station, and involves close collaboration with agency partners on a long-term vision for the Border Lakes Landscape of Minnesota and Ontario.

Feature Project

  • Applying landscape ecology principles to an internationally significant landscape: The Border Lakes Region of Minnesota and Ontario.

The Border Lakes region is a 5 million acre forested landscape straddling the Minnesota-Ontario border. The region contains a large system of conservation reserves (Voyageurs National Park, Quetico Provincial Park, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness) surrounded by multiple-use lands under various ownership, resulting in complex patterns of forest resource use and fire management.

As part of the Border Lakes Partnership, a multi-agency collaborative, we are researching long-term forest disturbance dynamics to determine regional-level effects of disparate timber harvest activities, various ecosystem restoration strategies and natural disturbance regimes, especially fire.

We are using LANDIS, a spatially-explicit, forest dynamics model, to explore interactions among these spatially complex phenomena. By simulating various management scenarios in LANDIS, we will project potential future forest composition and wildfire probability, and we will identify collaborative, cross-boundary opportunities to restore forest ecosystems, reduce hazardous fuels and conserve biodiversity. Funding is provided by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) through the National Fire Plan, with significant resource matches from The Nature Conservancy and the USFS Northern Research Station.