Welcome to the Nelson lab's website. We study vegetation through a variety of perspectives including communities, single-species models, landscape-level problems, disturbance ecology, remote sensing and climate change.
Research Themes
- Remote sensing of vegetation
- Reflectance spectroscopy
- Lichens
- Community ecology
News from the Nelson Lab
News!
Article on plant genetics and reflectance spectroscopy in the New Phytologist led by Lance Stasinski Student co-advised by Peter at U Maine (picked up by CNN as "ray gun" aka spectroradiometer).
Long-time collaborator Matt Macander led a paper that summarized our work mapping plant functional types through time in Alaska. Big trends happening in grasses and lichens decreasing and shrubs increasing. Read more in Environmental Research Letters 2022.
Peter co-led an article out in Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences on tundra reflectance. Learn more here.
Nelson, Peter R., Andrew J. Maguire, Zoe Pierrat, Erica L. Orcutt, Dedi Yang, Shawn Serbin, Gerald V. Frost, et al. “Remote Sensing of Tundra Ecosystems Using High Spectral Resolution Reflectance: Opportunities and Challenges.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (accepted): e2021JG006697. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006697.
Article on plant genetics and reflectance spectroscopy in the New Phytologist led by Lance Stasinski Student co-advised by Peter at U Maine (picked up by CNN as "ray gun" aka spectroradiometer).
Long-time collaborator Matt Macander led a paper that summarized our work mapping plant functional types through time in Alaska. Big trends happening in grasses and lichens decreasing and shrubs increasing. Read more in Environmental Research Letters 2022.
Peter co-led an article out in Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences on tundra reflectance. Learn more here.
Nelson, Peter R., Andrew J. Maguire, Zoe Pierrat, Erica L. Orcutt, Dedi Yang, Shawn Serbin, Gerald V. Frost, et al. “Remote Sensing of Tundra Ecosystems Using High Spectral Resolution Reflectance: Opportunities and Challenges.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (accepted): e2021JG006697. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006697.
Check our paper in the journal Remote Sensing (2021) on mapping water stress in blueberries using lecospec led lab members Catherine Chan and Peter Nelson.
Paper on lichen depth across Alaska in Polar Biology
Lichen depth is a key measurement to calculate at the biomass.. From 2002-2012, the lichen communities in Arctic National Parks in Alaska, where lichen and caribou are abundant, were painstakingly measured in a variety of ways. This paper is the latest in a string from that work for the National Park Service.
Congrats to three lab members graduating Spring 2020!
Lab members Jane Pettit and Kevaughan Smith both graduated from U Maine-Fort Kent with Bachelor's of Science degrees in Environmental Studies. Catherine Chan graduated with her Masters in Science from U Maine's School of Forest Resources (SFR). Congratulations to everyone! Jane continues to help manage lab affairs, Kevaughan has started a Master's program at U Maine's SFR while Catherine has started a PhD program in Nebraska.
Check out the "Laboratory of Ecological Spectroscopy" website from the Nelson lab
We have increasingly become focused on using reflectance of light of plants to understand their biology and ecology. Check out our new website on that topic and our various projects applying reflectance spectroscopy to plant ecology, genetics, remote sensing and evolution.
http://lecospec.weebly.com/
Lichen depth is a key measurement to calculate at the biomass.. From 2002-2012, the lichen communities in Arctic National Parks in Alaska, where lichen and caribou are abundant, were painstakingly measured in a variety of ways. This paper is the latest in a string from that work for the National Park Service.
Congrats to three lab members graduating Spring 2020!
Lab members Jane Pettit and Kevaughan Smith both graduated from U Maine-Fort Kent with Bachelor's of Science degrees in Environmental Studies. Catherine Chan graduated with her Masters in Science from U Maine's School of Forest Resources (SFR). Congratulations to everyone! Jane continues to help manage lab affairs, Kevaughan has started a Master's program at U Maine's SFR while Catherine has started a PhD program in Nebraska.
Check out the "Laboratory of Ecological Spectroscopy" website from the Nelson lab
We have increasingly become focused on using reflectance of light of plants to understand their biology and ecology. Check out our new website on that topic and our various projects applying reflectance spectroscopy to plant ecology, genetics, remote sensing and evolution.
http://lecospec.weebly.com/
Contact me here.
Looking north at Takahula lake and Alatna river, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, 2012.
