Scholars@Duke
Jennifer J. Swenson

Jennifer J. Swenson

Adjunct Professor in the Division of Environmental Natural Sciences
Environmental Natural Science
P.O. Box 8795, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
P.O. Box 8795, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795

Scholarly Works - Journal articles

Satellite-based detection of unique sociocultural communities: the case of Mennonite colonies in Bolivia

Journal article Remote Sensing Letters · January 1, 2026 Detecting socio-economic characteristics of human populations from satellite imagery remains an emerging area in remote sensing. Prior work has linked satellite data to general socio-economic indicators such as income and population density, but the identi ... Full text Cite

The Relationship Between Maturation Size and Maximum Tree Size From Tropical to Boreal Climates.

Journal article Ecology letters · September 2024 The fundamental trade-off between current and future reproduction has long been considered to result in a tendency for species that can grow large to begin reproduction at a larger size. Due to the prolonged time required to reach maturity, estimates of tr ... Full text Cite

Remotely sensed crown nutrient concentrations modulate forest reproduction across the contiguous United States.

Journal article Ecology · August 2024 Global forests are increasingly lost to climate change, disturbance, and human management. Evaluating forests' capacities to regenerate and colonize new habitats has to start with the seed production of individual trees and how it depends on nutrient acces ... Full text Cite

Masting is uncommon in trees that depend on mutualist dispersers in the context of global climate and fertility gradients.

Journal article Nature plants · July 2023 The benefits of masting (volatile, quasi-synchronous seed production at lagged intervals) include satiation of seed predators, but these benefits come with a cost to mutualist pollen and seed dispersers. If the evolution of masting represents a balance bet ... Full text Cite

Habitat–trait interactions that control response to climate change: North American ground beetles (Carabidae)

Journal article Global Ecology and Biogeography · June 1, 2023 Aim: As one of the most diverse and economically important families on Earth, ground beetles (Carabidae) are viewed as a key barometer of climate change. Recent meta-analyses provide equivocal evidence on abundance changes of terrestrial insects. Generaliz ... Full text Cite

Linking seed size and number to trait syndromes in trees

Journal article Global Ecology and Biogeography · May 1, 2023 Aim: Our understanding of the mechanisms that maintain forest diversity under changing climate can benefit from knowledge about traits that are closely linked to fitness. We tested whether the link between traits and seed number and seed size is consistent ... Full text Cite

Forest concessions and eco-certifications in the Peruvian Amazon: Deforestation impacts of logging rights and logging restrictions

Journal article Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · March 1, 2023 Concessions that grant logging rights to firms support economic development based on forest resources. Eco-certifications put sustainability restrictions on the operations of those concessions. For spatially detailed data, including many pre-treatment year ... Full text Cite

Tracking a blue wave of ephemeral water across arid southern Africa

Journal article Environmental Research Letters · November 1, 2022 Surface water in arid regions is essential to many organisms including large mammals of conservation concern. For many regions little is known about the extent, ecology and hydrology of ephemeral waters, because they are challenging to map given their ephe ... Full text Cite

Globally, tree fecundity exceeds productivity gradients.

Journal article Ecology letters · June 2022 Lack of tree fecundity data across climatic gradients precludes the analysis of how seed supply contributes to global variation in forest regeneration and biotic interactions responsible for biodiversity. A global synthesis of raw seedproduction data shows ... Full text Cite

Limits to reproduction and seed size-number trade-offs that shape forest dominance and future recovery.

Journal article Nature communications · May 2022 The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worl ... Full text Cite

North American tree migration paced by climate in the West, lagging in the East.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · January 2022 Tree fecundity and recruitment have not yet been quantified at scales needed to anticipate biogeographic shifts in response to climate change. By separating their responses, this study shows coherence across species and communities, offering the strongest ... Full text Cite

Is there tree senescence? The fecundity evidence.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2021 Despite its importance for forest regeneration, food webs, and human economies, changes in tree fecundity with tree size and age remain largely unknown. The allometric increase with tree diameter assumed in ecological models would substantially overestimat ... Full text Cite

Environmental Correlates of Lyme Disease Emergence in Southwest Virginia, 2005-2014.

Journal article J Med Entomol · July 16, 2021 Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in North America. Though human infection is mostly transmitted in a limited geography, the range has expanded in recent years. One notable area of recent expansion is in the mountainous region of southwest ... Full text Link to item Cite

Continent-wide tree fecundity driven by indirect climate effects.

Journal article Nature communications · February 2021 Indirect climate effects on tree fecundity that come through variation in size and growth (climate-condition interactions) are not currently part of models used to predict future forests. Trends in species abundances predicted from meta-analyses and specie ... Full text Cite

Asymmetric responses of ecosystem productivity to rainfall anomalies vary inversely with mean annual rainfall over the conterminous United States.

Journal article Global change biology · December 2020 The CONterminous United States (CONUS) presents a large range of climate conditions and biomes where terrestrial primary productivity and its inter-annual variability are controlled regionally by rainfall and/or temperature. Here, the response of ecosystem ... Full text Cite

Aboveground carbon loss associated with the spread of ghost forests as sea levels rise

Journal article Environmental Research Letters · October 1, 2020 Coastal forests sequester and store more carbon than their terrestrial counterparts but are at greater risk of conversion due to sea level rise. Saltwater intrusion from sea level rise converts freshwater-dependent coastal forests to more salt-tolerant mar ... Full text Cite

Compared performances of SMOS-IC soil moisture and vegetation optical depth retrievals based on Tau-Omega and Two-Stream microwave emission models

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · January 1, 2020 Since 2010, SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) retrievals of surface soil moisture (SM) and vegetation optical depth (VOD) have been produced through the inversion of the so-called Tau-Omega (TO) vegetation emission model. Tau-Omega is a 0th Full text Cite

Improved connectivity analysis using multiple low-cost paths to evaluate habitat for the endangered San Martin titi monkey (Plecturocebus oenanthe) in north-central Peru

Journal article Landscape Ecology · August 1, 2019 Context: Graph-theoretic evaluations of habitat connectivity often rely upon least-cost path analyses to evaluate connectedness of habitat patches, based on an underlying cost surface. We present two improvements upon these methods. Objectives: As a case s ... Full text Cite

Mapping soil moisture at a high resolution over mountainous regions by integrating in situ measurements, topography data, and MODIS land surface temperatures

Journal article Remote Sensing · March 1, 2019 Hydro-agricultural applications often require surface soil moisture (SM) information at high spatial resolutions. In this study, daily spatial patterns of SM at a spatial resolution of 1 km over the Babao River Basin in northwestern China were mapped using ... Full text Cite

Impacts of certification, uncertified concessions, and protected areas on forest loss in Cameroon, 2000 to 2013

Journal article Biological Conservation. · November 2018 Deforestation and forest fragmentation are leading drivers of biodiversity loss. Protected areas have been the leading conservation policy response, yet their scale and scope remain inadequate to meet biodiversity conservation targets. Managed forest conce ... Full text Cite

Accounting for landscape heterogeneity improves spatial predictions of tree vulnerability to drought.

Journal article The New phytologist · October 2018 As climate change continues, forest vulnerability to droughts and heatwaves is increasing, but vulnerability varies regionally and locally through landscape position. Also, most models used in forecasting forest responses to heat and drought do not incorpo ... Full text Cite

Quantifying shorebird habitat in managed wetlands by modeling shallow water depth dynamics.

Journal article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · September 2018 Over 50% of Western Hemisphere shorebird species are in decline due to ongoing habitat loss and degradation. In some regions of high wetland loss, shorebirds are heavily reliant on a core network of remaining human-managed wetlands during migration journey ... Full text Cite

Integrating drone imagery into high resolution satellite remote sensing assessments of estuarine environments

Journal article Remote Sensing · August 1, 2018 Very high-resolution satellite imagery (≤5 m resolution) has become available on a spatial and temporal scale appropriate for dynamic wetland management and conservation across large areas. Estuarine wetlands have the potential to be mapped at a detailed h ... Full text Cite

Leaf phenology paradox: Why warming matters most where it is already warm

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · May 2018 Interactions between climate and ecosystem properties that control phenological responses to climate warming and drought are poorly understood. To determine contributions from these interactions, we used space-borne remotely sensed vegetation indices to mo ... Full text Open Access Cite

Co-occurring woody species have diverse hydraulic strategies and mortality rates during an extreme drought.

Journal article Plant, cell & environment · March 2018 From 2011 to 2013, Texas experienced its worst drought in recorded history. This event provided a unique natural experiment to assess species-specific responses to extreme drought and mortality of four co-occurring woody species: Quercus fusiformis, Diospy ... Full text Open Access Cite

Twenty-three-year timeline of ecological stable states and regime shifts in upper Amazon oxbow lakes

Journal article Hydrobiologia · February 1, 2018 Regime shifts in shallow lakes are often associated with anthropogenic impacts, such as land-use change, non-point source nutrient loading, and overfishing. These shifts have mostly been examined in lakes in temperate and boreal regions and within anthropo ... Full text Open Access Cite

Measuring canopy loss and climatic thresholds from an extreme drought along a fivefold precipitation gradient across Texas.

Journal article Global change biology · December 2017 Globally, trees are increasingly dying from extreme drought, a trend that is expected to increase with climate change. Loss of trees has significant ecological, biophysical, and biogeochemical consequences. In 2011, a record drought caused widespread tree ... Full text Cite

Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation: three years on

Journal article Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation · June 1, 2017 Full text Cite

Trends in size of tropical deforestation events signal increasing dominance of industrial-scale drivers

Journal article Environmental Research Letters · May 9, 2017 Deforestation continues across the tropics at alarming rates, with repercussions for ecosystem processes, carbon storage and long term sustainability. Taking advantage of recent fine-scale measurement of deforestation, this analysis aims to improve our und ... Full text Cite

Three decades of Landsat-derived spring surface water dynamics in an agricultural wetland mosaic; Implications for migratory shorebirds.

Journal article Remote sensing of environment · May 2017 Satellite measurements of surface water offer promise for understanding wetland habitat availability at broad spatial and temporal scales; reliable habitat is crucial for the persistence of migratory shorebirds that depend on wetland networks. We analyzed ... Full text Open Access Cite

Tree cover and carbon mapping of Argentine savannas: Scaling from field to region

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · January 2016 Programs which intend to maintain or enhance carbon (C) stocks in natural ecosystems are promising, but require detailed and spatially explicit C distribution models to monitor the effectiveness of management interventions. Savanna ecosystems are significa ... Full text Cite

Woody Plant-Cover Dynamics in Argentine Savannas from the 1880s to 2000s: The Interplay of Encroachment and Agriculture Conversion at Varying Scales

Journal article Ecosystems. · April 2015 Woody plant-cover dynamics can alter the provisioning of ecosystem services that humans rely on. However, our understanding of such dynamics today is often limited by the availability of reliable and detailed land-cover information in the past, before the ... Full text Cite

Shifting carbon pools along a plant cover gradient in woody encroached savannas of central Argentina

Journal article Forest ecology and management · November 2014 Woody plant encroachment is a widespread process of land cover change driven by a combination of local land use practices and regional to global environmental changes. Increases in woody plant cover alter the distribution of carbon in the ecosystem and can ... Full text Cite

Estimating above-ground carbon biomass in a newly restored coastal plain wetland using remote sensing.

Journal article PloS one · January 2013 Developing accurate but inexpensive methods for estimating above-ground carbon biomass is an important technical challenge that must be overcome before a carbon offset market can be successfully implemented in the United States. Previous studies have shown ... Full text Cite

A Comparison of Three Methods to Estimate Evapotranspiration in Two Contrasting Loblolly Pine Plantations: Age-Related Changes in Water Use and Drought Sensitivity of Evapotranspiration Components

Journal article Forest science · October 2012 Increasing variability of rainfall patterns requires detailed understanding of the pathways of water loss from ecosystems to optimize carbon uptake and management choices. In the current study we characterized the usability of three alternative methods of ... Full text Open Access Cite

Three-dimensional characterization of pine forest type and red-cockaded woodpecker habitat by small-footprint, discrete-return lidar

Journal article Forest Ecology and Management. · October 2012 Accurate measurement of forest canopy structure is critical for understanding forest-wildlife habitat relationships. Although most theory and application have been based on in situ measurements, imaging technologies such as Light Detection and Ranging (lid ... Full text Cite

Plant and animal endemism in the eastern Andean slope: challenges to conservation.

Journal article BMC ecology · January 2012 BackgroundThe Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia is one of the most data-poor, biologically rich, and rapidly changing areas of the world. Conservation scientists agree that this area hosts extremely high endemism, perhaps the highest in the w ... Full text Cite

Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.

Journal article PloS one · April 2011 Many factors such as poverty, ineffective institutions and environmental regulations may prevent developing countries from managing how natural resources are extracted to meet a strong market demand. Extraction for some resources has reached such proportio ... Full text Open Access Cite

A comparison of lidar, radar, and field measurements of canopy height in pine and hardwood forests of southeastern North America

Journal article Forest Ecology and Management. · February 2009 Forest canopy height is essential information for many forest management activities and is a critical parameter in models of ecosystem processes. Several methods are available to measure canopy height from single-tree to regional and global scales, but the ... Full text Cite

Predicting species distributions in poorly-studied landscapes

Journal article Biodiversity and conservation · June 2008 Conservationists are increasingly relying on distribution models to predict where species are likely to occur, especially in poorly-surveyed but biodiverse areas. Modeling is challenging in these cases because locality data necessary for model formation ar ... Full text Cite

Reference scenarios for deforestation and forest degradation in support of REDD: A review of data and methods

Journal article Environmental Research Letters · June 1, 2008 Global climate policy initiatives are now being proposed to compensate tropical forest nations for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). These proposals have the potential to include developing countries more actively ... Full text Cite

Modelled photosynthesis predicts woody plant richness at three geographic scales across the north-western United States

Journal article Global Ecology and Biogeography · September 1, 2006 Aim: We analyse regional patterns of woody plant species richness collected from field data in relation to modelled gross photosynthesis, Pg, compare the performance of Pg in relation to other productivity surrogates, and examine the ... Full text Cite

Is forest fragmentation driven by the spatial configuration of land quality? The case of western Oregon

Journal article Forest Ecology and Management. · October 2005 We investigated spatial configuration of economic returns, to enhance models of forest fragmentation for western Oregon and western Washington. Drawing from spatial land rent theory, economic drivers of forest fragmentation at the landscape level include l ... Full text Cite

Using biophysical factors to predict regional biodiversity potential in the pacific and inland northwest

Journal article NCASI Technical Bulletin · October 1, 2005 The distribution of biodiversity across the Pacific and Inland Northwest (PINW) is currently not well known. This knowledge is important for setting management priorities within agency and industrial forest holdings. Previous attempts to map biodiversity a ... Cite

Predicting site index with a physiologically based growth model across Oregon, USA

Journal article Canadian Journal of Forest Research · July 1, 2005 With expanded interests in sustaining productivity under changing climate, management, and disturbance regimes, we sought a means of mapping the potential productivity of forests across the state of Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, USA. We chose the mappin ... Full text Cite

Forest fragmentation in the Pacific Northwest: quantification and correlations.

Journal article Forest Ecology and Management. · February 2004 A forest fragmentation index was produced for western Oregon and western Washington that combined measures of forested area, percentage edge, and interspersion. While natural, human land-cover, and human land-use processes contribute to forest fragmentatio ... Full text Cite

The effects of future urban development on habitat fragmentation in the Santa Monica Mountains

Journal article Landscape Ecology · December 1, 2000 A site suitability model of urban development was created for the Santa Monica Mountains in southern California, USA, to project to what degree future development might fragment the natural habitat. The purpose was to help prioritize land acquisition for t ... Full text Cite