My major research programs are the North Temperate Lakes LTER
project based in Madison and at Trout Lake, and the BioComplexity
project (which dovetails closely with LTER) - the Cascade Project in
northern Wisconsin, which is a project to develop integrative models for
lakes of northern Wisconsin, and is a cluster of international projects on
building theory for ecosystem management.
Personally, I am most excited by two research themes which cut across most
of my projects. The first is the development of tools for envisioning and projecting
future change in ecosystems.
Examples include the scenarios project for northern Wisconsin (http://lakefutures.wisc.edu),
work on landscape models of water, organic carbon, and phosphorus cycling,
and modeling and empirical studies of thresholds for regime shifts in the phosphorus
cycle and aquatic food webs.
The second is research to understand ecosystem management. The science of
managing ecosystems is not a problem in ecology or social science alone, but
instead is a completely new transdisciplinary field. It is increasingly important
because of rapid global change in ecosystems and expanding human demand for
services that ecosystems provide. With a group of international collaborators,
I am developing a new framework for analyzing, comparing, understanding, and
perhaps even improving ecosystem management.
Additionally, Professor Steve Carpenter serves as co-chair
of the Scenarios Working Group for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
The Millennium Assessment is an international project to assess
the condition of earth’s ecosystems
and the implications for human well-being. The Scenarios Working
Group is charged with evaluating the plausible futures of ecosystem
services used by humans over the next 50 years. See their web
site (www.millenniumassessment.org)
for more information. View a news
release about this groups' Oct. 13, 2006 article in Science.
Owen Langman (oclangman@wisc.edu)
Signal processing for automated acquisition
of limnological data
Nick
Preston (npreston@wisc.edu)
Limnology and Marine Science - Processing of terrigenous
organic carbon in freshwater ecosystems
Matthew
Van de Bogert (mcvandeb@wisc.edu)
Limnology and Marine Science - Modeling of hydrologic, organic
carbon and phosphorus linkages in lake-dominated landscapes
Graduate students supervised who earned graduate degrees:
Pieter Johnson, Ph.D., Zoology, 2006.
Darren Bade, Ph.D., Limnology
and Marine Sciences, 2004.
Paul C. Hanson, Ph.D. Limnology and
Marine Science 2003
Elena Bennett, Ph.D. Limnology and Marine
Sciences 2002
Jeff Houser, Ph.D. Zoology 2001
Doug Beard, Ph.D. in Zoology 2001
Benjamin Greenfield, M.S. 2000
Carpenter, S.R. and W.A. Brock. 2006. Rising variance: A
leading indicator of ecological transition. Ecology Letters 9: 311-318.
Walker, B., L. Gunderson, A. Kinzig, C. Folke, S. Carpenter and L. Schultz
2006. A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience
in Social-Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society 11 (1): 13. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art13/
Gunderson, L. H., S. R. Carpenter, C. Folke, P. Olsson and G. Peterson
2006. Water RATs (Resilience, Adaptability, and Transformability) in Lake
and Wetland Social-Ecological Systems . Ecology and Society 11 (1): 16.
[online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art16/
Olsson, P., L. H. Gunderson, S. R. Carpenter, P. Ryan, L. Lebel, C. Folke
and C. Holling 2006. Shooting the Rapids: Navigating Transitions to Adaptive
Governance of Social-Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society 11 (1): 18.
[online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art18/
Bade, D.L., M.L. Pace, J.J. Cole and S.R. Carpenter. 2006. Can
algal photosynthetic fractionation in lakes be predicted from existing
models? Aquatic Sciences 68: 142-153.
Hanson, P.C, S.R. Carpenter, D.E. Armstrong, E.H. Stanley and T.K. Kratz. 2006.
Lake dissolved inorganic carbon and dissolved oxygen: changing drivers
across scales from days to decades. Ecological Monographs 76: 343-363..
Cole, J.J., S.R. Carpenter, M.L. Pace, M.C. Van de Bogert, J.F. Kitchell
and J.R. Hodgson. 2006. Differential support of lake food webs
by three types of terrestrial organic carbon. Ecology Letters 9:
558-568.
Bade, D., S.R. Carpenter, J.J. Cole, M.L. Pace, E. Kritzberg, M.C. Van
de Bogert, R. Corey and D.M. McKnight. 2006. Sources and fates
of dissolved organic carbon in lakes as determined by whole-lake isotope
additions. Biogeochemistry: in press.
Carpenter, S.R. and C. Folke. 2006. Ecology for transformation. Trends
in Ecology and Evolution 21: 309-315.
Carpenter, S. R., E. M. Bennett, and G. D. Peterson. 2006. Scenarios
for ecosystem services: an overview. Ecology and Society11(1):
29. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art29/
Chapin, F. S., III, M. Hoel, S. R. Carpenter, J. Lubchenco, B. Walker,
T. V. Callaghan, C. Folke, S. Levin, K.-G. Mäler, C. Nilsson, S. Barrett,
F. Berkes, A.-S. Crépin, K. Danell, T. Rosswall, D. Starrett, T.
Xepapadeas, and S. A. Zimov. 2006. Building resilience
and adaptation to manage Arctic change. Ambio 35: 198-202.
Sass, G.G., J.F. Kitchell, S.R. Carpenter, T.R. Hrabik, A.E. Marburg,
and M.G. Turner. 2006. Fish community and food web responses
to a whole-lake removal of coarse woody habitat. Fisheries 31: 321-330.
Brock, W. A. and S. R. Carpenter 2006. Variance as a Leading Indicator
of Regime Shift in Ecosystem Services. Ecology and Society 11 (2): 9. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art9/
Brose, U., T. Jonsson, E.R. Berlow, P. Warren, C. Banasek-Richter, L.F.
Bersier, J.L. Blanchard, T. Brey, S.R. Carpenter, M.F. Cattin Blandinier,
L. Cushing, H.A. Dawah, T. Dell, F. Edwards, S. Harper-Smith, U. Jacob,
M.E. Ledger, N.D. Martinez, J. Memmott, K. Mintenbeck, J.K. Pinnegar, B.C.
Rall, T.S. Rayner, D.C. Reumann, L. Reuss, W. Ulrich, R.J. Williams, G.
Woodward and J.E. Cohen. 2006. Consumer-resource body size
relationships in natural food webs. Ecology 87: 2411-2417.
Johnson, P.T.J. and S.R. Carpenter. 2006. Influence of eutrophication
on disease in aquatic ecosytems: patterns, processes and predictions. In
R. Ostfeld, F. Keesing and V. Eviner (eds.), Reciprocal Interactions of
Ecosystems and Disease. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
Johnson, P.T.J., D.E. Stanton, E.R. Preu, K.J. Forshay, and S.R. Carpenter. 2006. Dining
on disease: How interactions between infection and environment affect
predation risk. Ecology 87: 1973-1980.
Carpenter, S.R., R. DeFries, H.A. Mooney, S. Polasky, W. Reid and R.
Scholes. 2006. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Research
Needs. Science 313: 257-258.
Sterner, T., M. Troell, M., S. Aniyar, S. Barrett, W. Brock, S. Carpenter,
K. Chopra, P. Ehrlich, M. Hoel, S. Levin, K-G. Mäler, J. Norbert,
L. Pihl, T. Söderqvist, J. Wilen and A. Xepapadeas. 2006. Quick
fixes for environmental problems: Part of the solution, or part
of the problem? Environment 48: 20-27.
Carpenter, S.R. and W.A. Brock. 2005. Rising variance: A leading indicator
of ecological transition. Ecology Letters: in press.
Ludwig, D., W. A. Brock and S. R. Carpenter 2005. Uncertainty in Discount
Models and Environmental Accounting. Ecology and Society 10 (2): 13. [online]
URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss2/art13/
Gunderson, L., S.R. Carpenter, C. Folke, P. Olsson and G. Peterson. 2005.
Water RATs (Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability) in Lake and
Wetland Social-Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society: in press.
Folke, C., S. Carpenter, B. Walker, M. Scheffer, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson
and C.S. Holling. 2005. Regime shifts, resilience and biodiversity in ecosystem
management. Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics 35: 557-581.
Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience,
adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology
and Society 9(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5
Jonsson, T., J.E. Cohen and S.R. Carpenter. 2005. Food webs, body size,
and species abundance in ecological community description. Advances in
Ecological Research 36: 2-84.
Genkai-Kato, M. and S.R. Carpenter. 2005. Eutrophication due to phosphorus
recycling in relation to lake morphometry, temperature and macrophytes.
Ecology 86: 210-219.
Cohen, J.E. and S.R. Carpenter. 2005. Species’ average body mass
and numerical abundance in a community food web: statistical questions
in estimating the relationship. Pp. 137-156 in P.C. de Ruiter, V. Wolters,
and J.C. Moore (editors), Dynamic Food Webs: Multispecies Assemblages,
Ecosystem Development and Environmental Change. Academic Press.
Bennett, E. M., S. R. Carpenter, and M. Clayton. 2005. Soil phosphorus
variability: Scale-dependency in an urbanizing agricultural landscape.
Landscape Ecology: in press.
Gergel, S.E., S.R. Carpenter and E.H. Stanley. 2005. Do dams and levees
impact nitrogen cycling? Simulating the effects of floodplain alterations
on floodplain denitrification. Global Change Biology 11: 1352-1367.
Carpenter, S.R., J.J. Cole, M. L. Pace, M. Van de Bogert, D.L. Bade, D.
Bastviken, C.M. Gille, J. R. Hodgson, J. F. Kitchell, and E. S. Kritzberg.
2005. Ecosystem subsidies: terrestrial support of aquatic food webs from
13C addition to contrasting lakes. Ecology 86: 2737-2750.
Carpenter, S.R., R.C. Lathrop, P. Nowak, E.M. Bennett, T. Reed and P.A.
Soranno. 2005. The ongoing experiment: Restoration of Lake Mendota and
its watershed. Pp. 236-256 in J.J. Magnuson, T.K. Kratz and B.J. Benson
(eds.), Long-Term Dynamics of Lakes in the Landscape. Oxford University
Press, London, England.
Foley, J., R. de Fries, G.P. Asner, C. Barford, G. Bonan, S.R. Carpenter,
F.S. Chapin, M.T. Coe, G.C. Daily, H.K. Gibbs, J.H. Helkowski, T. Hollaway,
E.A. Howard, C.J. Kucharik, C. Monfreda, J.A. Patz, I.C. Prentice, N. Ramankutty,
and P.K. Snyder. 2005. Global consequences of land use. Science 309: 570-574.
Carpenter, S.R. 2005. Eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems: Bistability
and soil phosphorus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102:
10002-10005. Available on the Internet: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/101073/pnas.0503959102.
Brose, U., L. Cushing, C. Banasak-Richter, E.L. Berlow, L.-F. Bersier,
J.L. Blanchard, T. Brey, S.R. Carpenter, M.-F. Cattin-Blandinier, J.E.
Cohen, H.A. Daway, T. Dell, F. Edwards, S. Harper-Smith, U. Jacob, T. Jonsson,
R.A. Knapp, M.E. Ledger, N.D. Martinez, J. Mennott, K. Mintenbeck, J.K.
Pinnegar, T. Rayner, L. Ruess, W. Ulrich, P. Warren, R.J. Williams, G.
Woodward and P. Yodzis. 2005. Empirical body sizes of consumers and their
resources. Ecology 86: 2545-2545.
Adger, W.N., T.P. Hughes, C. Folke, S.R. Carpenter and J. Rockstrom. 2005.
Social-ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309: 1036-1039.
Brock, W.A., Carpenter, S.R. & Scheffer, M. 2005. Regime shifts, environmental
signals, uncertainty and policy choice. In A Theoretical Framework for
Analyzing Social-Ecological Systems, eds. Norberg, J. and Cumming, G. (Columbia,
New York), in press.
Walker, B., L. Gunderson, A. Kinzig, C. Folke, S. Carpenter and L. Schultz.
2005. A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience
in Social-Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society: In press.
Scheffer, M., S.R. Carpenter and B. de Young. 2005. Cascading effects
of overfishing marine systems. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20: 579-581.
Genkai-Kato, M. and S.R. Carpenter. 2005. Eutrophication due to phosphorus
recycling in relation to lake morphometry, temperature and macrophytes.
Ecology 86: 210-219.
Jonsson, T., J.E. Cohen and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Food webs, body size,
and species abundance in ecological community description. Advances in
Ecological Research 36: in press.
Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience,
adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology
and Society 9(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5
Folke, C., S. Carpenter, B. Walker, M. Scheffer, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson
and C.S. Holling. 2005. Regime shifts, resilience and biodiversity in ecosystem
management. Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics 35: 557-581.
Bade, D.L., S.R. Carpenter, J.J. Cole, P.C. Hanson and R.L. Hesslein.
2004. Controls of ?13C-DIC in lakes: Geochemistry, lake metabolism and
morphometry. Limnology and Oceanography 49: 1160-1172.
Hanson, P.C., A.I. Pollard, D.L. Bade, K. Predick, S.R. Carpenter and
J.A. Foley. 2004. A model of carbon evasion and sedimentation in temperate
lakes. Global Change Biology 10: 1285-1298.
Carpenter, S.R. and W.A. Brock. 2004. Spatial complexity, resilience and
policy diversity: Fishing on lake-rich landscapes. Ecology and Society
9(1): 8. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art8
Pace, M.L., J.J. Cole, S.R. Carpenter, J.F. Kitchell, J.R. Hodgson, M.
Van de Bogert, D.L. Bade, E.S. Kritzberg, and D. Bastviken. 2004. Whole-lake
carbon-13 additions reveal terrestrial support of aquatic food webs. Nature
427: 240-243.
Scheffer, M. and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems:
linking theory to observation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12: 648-656.
Carpenter, S.R. 2003. The need for fast and frugal models. in C. Canham
and W. Lauenroth (eds.), Understanding Ecosystems: The Role of Quantitative
Models in Observation, Synthesis and Prediction. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, N.J., U.S.A.
Beard, T.D., Jr., P.W. Rasmussen, S.P. Cox and S.R. Carpenter. 2003.
Evaluation of a mixed walleye spearing and angling fishery management system
in northern Wisconsin. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 23:
481-491.
Beard, T. D., Jr., S. P. Cox and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Impacts of daily
bag limit reductions on angler effort in Wisconsin walleye lakes. North
American Journal of Fisheries Management 23: 1283-1293.
Ludwig, D., S. Carpenter and W. Brock. 2003. Optimal phosphorus loading
for a potentially eutrophic lake. Ecological Applications 13: 1135-1152.
Hanson, P. C., D. L. Bade, S. R. Carpenter, and T. K. Kratz. 2003. Lake
metabolism: Relationships with dissolved organic carbon and phosphorus.
Limnology and Oceanography 48: 1112-1119.
Bennett, E.M., S.R. Carpenter, G.D. Peterson, G.S. Cumming, M. Zurek
and P. Pingali. 2003. Why global scenarios need ecology. Frontiers in Ecology
and the Environment 1: 322-329.
Beard, T. D., Jr., M.J. Hansen and S. R. Carpenter. 2003. Development
of a regional stock-recruitment model for understanding factors affecting
walleye recruitment in Northern Wisconsin lakes. Transactions of the American
Fisheries Society 132: 396-405.
Cohen, J.E., T. Jonsson and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Ecological community
description using food webs, species abundance and body size. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 100: 1781-1786.
Hobbie, J.E., S.R. Carpenter, N.B. Grimm, J.R. Gosz and T.R. Seastedt.
2003. The U.S. Long Term Ecological Research program. BioScience 53: 21-32.
Beisner, B.E., A.R. Ives and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Effects of an exotic
fish invasion on the prey communities of two lakes. Journal of Animal Ecology:
72: 331-342.
Beisner, B.E., C.L. Dent and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Variability of lakes
on the landscape: roles of phosphorus, food webs and dissolved organic
carbon. Ecology 84: 1563-1575 .
Peterson, G.D., T.D. Beard, B.E. Beisner, E.M. Bennett, S.R.Carpenter,
G.G. Cumming, C.L. Dent, T.D. Havlicek. 2003. Assessing future ecosystem
services: A case study of the Northern Highland Lake District, Wisconsin.
Conservation Ecology 7(3): 1. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol7/iss3/art1.
Peterson, G.D., G.S. Cumming and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Scenario planning:
A tool for conservation in an uncertain world. Conservation Biology: Conservation
Biology 17: 358-366.
Peterson, G.D., S.R. Carpenter and W.A. Brock. 2003. Uncertainty and
management of multi-state ecosystems: an apparently rational route to collapse.
Ecology 84: 1403-1411.
Ives, A.R., B. Dennis, K.L. Cottingham and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Estimating
community stability and ecological interactions from time-series data.
Ecological Monographs: 73: 301-330.
Carpenter, S.R. and K.L. Cottingham. 2002. Resilience and the restoration
of lakes. Pp. 51-70 in L.H. Gunderson and L. Pritchard Jr. (eds.), Resilience
and the Behavior of Large-Scale Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
[reprinting of Carpenter and Cottingham 1997, #131].