Ellen Macdonald, PhD

Pronouns: she/her

Personal Website: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NVTF3XcAAAAJ&hl=en

Curriculum Vitæ

Contact Overview Announcements Publications

Contact

Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sci - Renewable Resources Dept

Email: emacdona@ualberta.ca

Overview

Area of Study / Keywords

Forest ecology boreal forest forest disturbance sustainable forest management plant biodiversity

About

Job/Research Area: Professor Emeritus (Forest ecology and plant biodiversity)

1983 B.Sc. (with distinction) Environmental Biology, University of Calgary

1988 Ph.D. Plant Ecology, University of Calgary.

Awards

University Cup (University of Alberta) (2019)
IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organisations) Scientific Achievement Award (2019)
Ed and Peggy Tyrchniewicz Award for Innovation in Teaching (2015)
Canadian Institute of Forestry Scientific Achievement Award (2014)
Izaak Walton Killam Annual Professor (2007/08)
Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences - Teacher of the Year (2004, 2008, 2009, 2010)
Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring, Dept. of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta (1999)

Research

Major Responsibilities/Research Interests: The influence of natural and anthropogenic disturbances on the ecology and plant biodiversity of the boreal forest (see EMEND projects). Regeneration processes and successional dynamics of boreal mixedwood forest. Restoration ecology in northern ecosystems.

Teaching

RenR 322/721 Forest ecosystems: Fall 2014 - 2020

RenR 299 Spring Field School: Annually 1989-2021

Announcements

No longer accepting new graduate students.

Featured Publications

Data on vegetation across forest edges from the FERN (Forest Edge Research Network).

Harper, K.A., L. Gray, S.E. Macdonald, D. Lesiur, D. DeFields, P. Dodonov, C.M.A. Franklin, S. R. Haughian, L. Mascarúa López, A. Heathcote, K. Jager, R. Yang, C. Angelidis, A. Lanza Braga, W. Butler, S. Coley, J.M.E. Kornelson, L. Murphy, J. Pelton, E. Viotto Recco, R. de Oliveira Xavier, I. Wilson, M.C. Ribeiro, D. Maria da Silva Matos, Y. Bergeron.

Ecology. 2023 May; 10.1002/ecy.4098

Mounding treatments set back bryophyte recovery on linear disturbances in treed peatlands.

Echiverri, L.F.I., S.E. Macdonald, S.E. Nielsen.

Restoration Ecology. 2023 March; 31 (3):e13813 10.1111/rec.13813

Growth responses of 20 boreal forest species to oil sands non-segregating tailings: significance for reclamation

Zhang, W.-Q., K. Fleurial, M. Moawad, R. Vassov, S.E. Macdonald, S.E., J.J. Zwiazek

Restoration Ecology. 2023 March; 10.1111/rec.13874

Dynamics and recovery of forest understory biodiversity over 17 years following varying levels of retention harvesting

Bartels, S.F., S.E. Macdonald.

Journal of Applied Ecology. 2023 February; 60 10.1111/1365-2664.14366

Seasonal and annual dynamics of western Canadian boreal forest plant communities: a legacy dataset spanning four decades.

Hesketh, A.V., Loesberg, J.A., Bledsoe, E.K., Karst, J., Macdonald, S.E.

Ecology. 2022 December; 103 (11) 10.1002/ecy.3805

Estimating lichen biomass in forests and peatlands of northwestern Canada under a changing climate.

Errington, R.C., S.E. Macdonald, N.A. Melnycky, J.S. Bhatti.

Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research. 2022 November; 54 10.1080/15230430.2022.2082263

Above- and belowground drivers of intraspecific trait variability across subcontinental gradients for five ubiquitous forest plants in North America

Cardou, F., A. Munson, L. Boisvert-Marsh, M. Anand, A. Arsenault, W. Bell, Y. Bergeron, I. Boulangeat, S. Delagrange, N. Fenton, D. Gravel, B. Hamel, F. Hébert, J. Johnstone, B. Kumordzi, S.E. Macdonald, A. Mallik, A. McIntosh, J. McLaren, C. Messier, D. Morris, J.W. Shipley, L. Sirois, N. Thiffault, I. Aubin.

Journal of Ecology. 2022 October; 110 10.1111/1365-2745.13894

Neighboring edges: interacting edge effects from linear disturbances in treed fens

Echiverri, L.F.I., S.E. Macdonald, S.E. Nielsen.

Applied Vegetation Science . 2022 September; 25:e12645 10.1111/avsc.12645

“These trees have stories to tell”: Linking Denésƍłiné oral history of caribou use with trample scar frequency on black spruce roots at ɁEda Cho Kué.

Dokis-Jansen, K.L., B.L. Parlee, Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation, D.S Hik, B. Gendreau-Berthiaume, S.E. Macdonald, C. Stinn.

Arctic. 2022 August; 74 (3):290-305 10.14430/arctic73160

Natural disturbance-based forest management: moving beyond retention and continuous-cover forestry

Kuuluvainen, T., P. Angelstam, L. Frelich, K. Jogiste, M. Koivula, Y. Kubota, B. Lafleur, S. E. Macdonald.

Frontiers in Forests and Global Change . 2021 December; 10.3389/ffgc.2021.629020

Application of the conservation planning tool Zonation to information retention planning in the boreal forest of Western Canada

Robinne, F.-N., J.J. Stadt, C.W. Bater, C. Nock, S.E. Macdonald, and S.E.Nielsen

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution . 2021 January; 8

A topographic moisture index explains understory vegetation response to retention harvesting

Echiverri, L., S.E. Macdonald.

Forest Ecology & Management . 2020 October; 474 (article 118358 )

Estimating retention benchmarks for salvage logging to protect biodiversity

Thorn, S., A. Chao, K.B. Georgiev, J. Müller, C. Bässler, J.L. Campbell, J. Castro, Y.-H., Chen, C.-Y. Choi, T. Cobb, D.C. Donato, E. Durska, E. Macdonald, H. Feldhaar, J.B. Fontaine, P.J. Fornwalt, R.M.H. Hernández, R.L. Hutto, M. Koivula, E.-J. Lee, D. Lindenmayer, G. Mikusiński, M.K. Obrist, M. Perlik, J. Rost, K. Waldron, B. Wermelinger, I. Weiß, M. Żmihorski, A.B. Leverkus.

Nature Communications . 2020 October; 11 (4762)

The impact of atmospheric acid deposition on tree growth and forest understory vegetation in the Athabasca oil sands region

Bartels, S., B. Gendreau-Berthiaume, S.E. Macdonald.

Science of the Total Environment . 2019 December; 696 (article 133877)

Depth-to-water mediates bryophyte response to harvesting in boreal forests.

Bartels, S.F., R. James, R. Caners, S.E. Macdonald. 2019.

Journal of Applied Ecology . 2019 February; 56

Combining aggregated and dispersed green-tree retention harvesting for conservation of vascular plant communities

Franklin, C., S.E. Macdonald, and S.E. Nielsen.

Ecological Applications . 2018 July; 28 (7):1830-1840

Ecosystem memory of wildfires affects multi-taxa biodiversity resilience in boreal mixedwood forest after retention harvest.

Bergeron, J.A.C., J. Pinzon, S. Odsen, S. Bartels, S.E. Macdonald, J.R. Spence

Oikos. 2017 January; 12

Is the END (emulation of natural disturbance) a new beginning? A critical analysis of the use of fire regimes as the basis of forest ecosystem management with examples from the Canadian western Cordillera

Stockdale, C. , M. Flannigan, S.E. Macdonald

Environmental Revoews. 2016 January; 24 (3):233-243

Growth of aspen and white spruce on naturally saline sites in northern Alberta: Implications for development of boreal forest vegetation on reclaimed saline soils

Lilles, E., B. Purdy, S.E. Macdonald and S. Chang

Canadian Journal of Soil Science. 2012 January; 92

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