McGill University
M.Sc. candidate
Supervisor: Andrew Gonzalez
Elena Bennett
Start: 2011-10-01
End: 2013-09-01
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Project

The impacts of forest fragmentation on carbon storage and biodiversity in Monteregie, QC
My MSc. work focuses on the contribution of forest fragments to climate regulation: the ability of fragmented forests to store CO2. I am investigating the effects of different patterns of forest fragmentation (size and connectivity of fragments), and local forest management, on aboveground carbon storage and biodiversity. I am interested in determining whether we can manage for "win-win" scenarios, where both carbon stocks and biodiversity are high, or if one outcome occurs at the expense of the other. I use a mixture of satellite data, field-based methods, and allometry to try and answer these questions in the Montérégie, QC, a region characterized by a fragmented maple-beech forest ecosystem within a soy-corn agricultural matrix. I hope the outcome of this research can influence management decisions, and help landowners recognize their contributions to conservation and ecosystem service provision.

Keywords

ecosystem services, biodiversity, connectivity, Forest fragmentation, carbon

Publications

1- Variability in ecosystem service measurement: a pollination service case study
Liss, Kate N, Matthew GE Mitchell, Graham K MacDonald, Shauna L Mahajan, Josée Méthot, Aerin L Jacob, Dorothy Y Maguire, Geneviève S Metson, Carly Ziter, Karine Dancose, Kyle Martins, Marta Terrado, Elena M Bennett
2013 Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

2- Functional diversity and management mediate aboveground carbon stocks in small forest fragments
Ziter, Carly, Elena M. Bennett, Andrew Gonzalez
2013 Ecosphere

3- Nutrients and defoliation increase soil carbon inputs in grassland
Ziter, Carly, Andrew Stewart MacDougall
2012 Ecology

4- Climate change and voltinism in Californian insect pest species: sensitivity to location, scenario and climate model choice
Ziter, Carly, Emily A. Robinson, Jonathan A. Newman
2012 Global Change Biology