My general research goal is to build a better understanding of a number of aspects of the terrestrial landscape around Ithaca. Part of my research effort has been historical in nature--trying to understand how the major kinds of habitats that we see today have come to be, which habitats are of recent origin (e.g., old fields have been common only since European settlement in the late seventeenth century) and which habitats are much older (e.g., most of the different kinds of forests have been present for millennia), and of how different plant species have likely fit into a landscape that has changed dramatically in its configuration in the 200 years since European settlement. Examples of specific projects include (1) a description of the vegetation in central New York based on the original land survey records of 1790 and (2) working out a detailed history of forest clearing, based on field work and old aerial photographs, for the county surrounding Ithaca (Smith, Marks, & Gardescu 1993).

My research interests in contemporary ecology include disturbance regimes and regeneration dynamics of forests, population dynamics of trees, and old field succession. Examples of recent projects and interests: (1) divergence in successional pathways leading to tree dominance in some abandoned crop fields and dominance by shrubs in other sites; (2) understanding patterns and causes of forest herb invasion of post-agricultural forests; and (3) understanding variations in species composition and abundance of forest herbs in hedgerows as a function of hedgerow history (remnant vs. regenerated) and hedgerow type (isolated vs. attached to forest).