Professor Emeritus, Department
of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Senior Reaseach Scientist, Natural
Resource Ecology Laboratory
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523
Born:
1941, Albuquerque, NM
Raised:
Farm boy near Los Lunas, NM
Married: 1963, Two children
"Spirit of Place" Identity": Native, rural, pre-war by three months (The
Big One), male, gringo New Mexican (For
a warm and humorous sense of what that means read John Nichols' Melagro
Beanfield War and/or watch the movie of the same name on video)
Statement of Professional Goals:
I believe the most important
question facing society is: CAN IMPORTANT AND DESIRABLE ECOSYSTEMS
BE SUSTAINED LOCALLY, REGIONALLY, AND ON EARTH FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS? Seeking
effective means of addressing this question I, for the past few years, have
been shifting my career emphasis from active science administration and
focused field research to exploring new means of integrating of ecosystem
science, management and policy at landscape and regional scales. The pahtway
to this new emphasis is developing new methodologies for traditional and
professional learning, communication and collaboration. I am making this change because I feel that
the science I have devoted a career to and believe in is not being used
sufficiently by people who make “on-the ground” decisions about
land use planning and management. Until ecosystem science is integrated
into practical and useful tools for everyday decision making, our society
will continue to manage its resources and the environment based on ignorance,
myths and political whim. Recognizing that science is esstntial, but not
sufficient alone, the required integration requires cross-boundary perspectives
that effectively blend bio-physical, social and cultural, economic, and
political realities.
B.S., 1967, University of New Mexico, Biology
M.S., 1969, University of New Mexico, Botany and Plant Ecology
Ph.D., 1972, Colorado State University, Systems Ecology and Soils
Professional
· Synthesizing theoretical concepts of ecosystem structure and functioning into practical, process-based management practices
· Integrating principles of ecosystem and social sustainability and resilience in on-line education experiences
·
Enhancing environmental literacy and outdoor
learning experiences for learners of all ages and backgrounds using on-line Virtual Field Trips and
Self-guided Field Trips
(http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/LandCenter)
· Continued development of on-line courses in ecology and ecosystem science
· Management responses to Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic in lodgepole pine forests
Family and Personal
Farming (Retired), skiing, hiking, house building, traveling anywhere, botanizing, and handball (Retired - two hip replacements, one rotator cuff repair, back artritis is enough)
1972-1974 Postdoctoral Fellow, Colorado
State University
Liaison Staff Member,
Natural Resource Ecology
Grassland Biome, USIBP
Laboratory
1974-1978 Senior Research Ecologist
Natural Resource Ecology
Laboratory
1978-1982 Associate Professor Department
of Range Science,
Colorado State University
1981-1982 Founding Principle Investigator, Shortgrass Steppe Long-Term Ecological Research Program, National Science Foundation
1982-1984 Program Director, Ecosystem Studies Program, Division of Biotic Systems and Resources (now Environmental Biology), National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 20550
1982- 2005, Professor Department
of Range Science,
Colorado State University
1984-1992 Director, Natural Resource
Ecology Laboratory,
Colorado State University
1993 Executive Director, Sustainable Biosphere Initiative of the
Ecological Society of America
2010 Massachusetts
Ave., Suite #410, Washington, D.C. 20036
1994- Returned to FRWS Dept., Senior Research Scientist, NREL
Business and Community Experience:
Board Member, Morrison Creek Metropolitan Water and Sanitation District
With wife, Sarah, operated Quincy Creek Farm, a 65-acre, irrigated, family farm north of Fort Collins. Past-President local Parent - Teachers Organization, member numerous local and Poudre R-1 School District committees.
Member of the Larimer County Rural Land Use Center Board 1997-2000.
The RLUC Board advises the Larimer County Commissioners on disposition of rural subdivision applications. The RLUC uses a variety of incentives to encourage land owners who have made the decision to subdivide their land to manage the resulting growth by clustering building sites where appropriate, careful siting of buildings and roads, conserving crop, grazing, and forest lands, wetlands and other natural features, and perserving open lands.
Teaching and Training Experience:
Past:
NR 120 -- Natural Resource Conservation, College of Natural Resources,
BY220 -- Fundamentals Ecology
NR440 -- Land Use Planning, College of Natural Resources
RS351--Grassland Ecosystem Functioning I--Range Science Department, CSU
AG442--Forest and Range Soils--Agronomy Department, CSU
RS660--Nutrient Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems--Range Science Department, CSU
AG653--Simulation of Soil-Plant Systems--Agronomy Department, CSU
NR330--Natural Resource Ecology, College of Natural Resources, CSU
NR340--Natural Resource Measurements, College of Natural Resources, CSU
Current:
NR440--Land Use Planning -- College of
Natural Resources On-line Course through
CSU Continuing Education
RS531--World Grassland Ecogeography --
Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship-- On-line Course through CSU Continuing
Education
RS651-- Primary Production and
Decomposition -- Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship
-- On-line Course through CSU
Continuing Education
AGRI632-- Understanding and Managing the
Land Resource (Proposed new Title – Managing Ecological Processes and
Ecosystem Services) – Module in Western Center for Integrated Resource
Management Program, CSU -- On-line Course
through CSU Continuing Education
Collaborative Ecosystem Management (SAM-on-Line)
Shortcourses, Seminars and Workshops for Hire
This training course was developed to:
Provide shared language and concepts about ecosystems and Ecosystem Management in an "institution-neutral" context; Provide common base of information for communications that is cognizant of both internal and external concepts and terminology; Model and facilitate collaborative thinking and analysis; Honor and bridge differences in viewpoint, personal histories, and training; Encourage individuals and agencies to provide leadership in facilitating and collaborating in rational analysis and management of important and desirable ecosystems; Engage training program participants in accomplishing a simple structured analysis (i.e., integrated analysis, comparative risk assessment, etc.) of an issue/problem of the groups choosing.
Exploring Rangeland Ecosystems
Federal and state agencies, many organized interest groups, local citizens and others are involved in the process of implementing “ecosystem management”. Realistically, however, many of the people involved are not trained in an ecosystem perspective and, indeed, are not at all knowledgeable of even the rudiments ecological understanding. This training course has been developed to bring the fundamentals of ecosystem understanding in a collaborative setting to local interest groups, such as, Resource Advisory Committees of the BLM, and to anyone else who feels the need for an improved knowledge base in the structure and functioning of ecosystems and in the principles of collaboration.
Before You Subdivide Your Land
The purpose of this seminar is to aquatint land owners (and their agents) who are considering subdividing their land with some of the issues, regulations, incentives, and opportunities that are available for careful owner initiated planning. Remember, subdivisions are forever. Now is the last chance to let your values direct how your land will look and be managed in the future. Afterwards, you have only one of many views.
Institutional Change in Environmental Science and Management
This seminar explores several of the critical issues involved in individual and organizational change. Borrowing from some selected literature of grief resolution, functioning within healthy and unhealthy families, drug and alcohol recovery and adult life stage transformations I have tried to organize some thoughts to explain why so many of our federal and state agencies, academic institutions and scientific and professional societies are so disfunctional.
Computer Aids in Ecosystem Management and Collaborative Land Use Planning
While undergoing my own life stage transformations I have learned some computer skills (PC's) that can simplify communication, collaboration, learning and knowledge storage storage and retrieval. Because my driving philosophy is to utilize "off the shelf" software technology rather than invent new and clever solutions to already solved problems, I have organized numerous applications into an integrated and low cost (relatively) system that supports local collaborative planning and management activities. This flexible system of software and hardware components is designed for use by non-nerds (computer literate but not expert) in relatively remote locations where real nerds are not nearby to help fix problems. The basic modules are modern word processors that have unbelievable power hidden below their surfaces, spreadsheets (ditto the hidden stuff), data base managers, presentation graphics, GIS (Arc View 3.0), desktop publishing, image manipulators, Internet applications (e-mail, exploration, web pages, communications, etc.). This short course is a "hands-on" training activity that will prepare participants to develop the own systems.
Previous Professional Research and Administrative Experience: (Selected)
Chairman, Steering Committee, Scale and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes, SCOPE, Paris
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers: founding member, Board of Directors; President (1989)
Member, U.S. National Committee for Man and the Biosphere 1987-92. Chairman, Biosphere Reserve Coordinating Committee.
SCOPE (Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment) Committee, U.S. National National Academy of Sciences
Committee on Planetary Biology and Chemical Evolution, Space Science Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences.
Long-Term Ecological Research Advisory Committee, National Science Foundation.
National Atmospheric Deposition Project, Technical Committee.
Special Science Advisor, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environmental Program).
Advisory Committee, USDI-Geological Survey, Global Change Research Program
Strategy Review Team and Reviewer, USDA-CSRS, National Agriculture Initiative, Competitive Research Grants Program.
International Program Review Team, Centro Agronomico Tropical De Investigacion Y Ensenza (CATIE), Costa Rica. Funded through USAID. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. July - August 1990.
Co-Chair Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture Systems - Western Regional Council, USDA-CSRS.
Special Consultant, Biosphere Reserve Committee, Man and the Biosphere, UNESCO, Paris.
Member, White House Working Group, Global Carbon Sinks. 1993.
Publications: (Selected as most influential and/or important from more than 60)
Book:
Rosswall, T., R. G. Woodmansee, and P. G. Risser (eds.). 1988. Scales and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes. SCOPE Report 35. John Wiley & Sons, London and New York. 355 pp.
Journals and Reviewed Chapters in Books:
Woodmansee, R. G. 1977. Analysis and critique of the grassland ecosystem model ELM, pp. 257-281. In G. S. Innis (ed.) Grassland simulation model. Springer-Verlag, Inc., New York.
Woodmansee, R. G. 1978. Additions and losses of nitrogen in grassland ecosystems. BioScience 28:448-453.
Woodmansee, R. G., J. L. Dodd, R. A. Bowman, F. E. Clark, and C. E. Dickinson. 1978. Nitrogen budget in a shortgrass prairie. Oecologia (Berl.) 34:363-376.
Woodmansee, R. G., and D. A. Duncan. 1980. Nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics and budget in annual grasslands. Ecology 61(4):893-904.
McGill, W. B., H. W. Hunt, R. G. Woodmansee, and J. O. Reuss. 1981. PHOENIX: A model of carbon and nitrogen dynamics in grasslands, pp. 171-191. In H. Van Veen and M. Frissel (eds.) Simulation of Nitrogen Behavior in Soil Plant Systems. PUDOC, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Woodmansee, R. G., and L. Wallach. 1981. Effects of fire regimes on biochemical cycles, pp. 379-400. In H. A. Mooney, T. M. Bonnicksen, N. L. Christensen, J. E. Lotan, and W. A. Reiners (eds.) Fire regimes and ecosystem properties. USDA Forest Service, General Technical Report, PNW, Washington, D.C. Reprinted (1981), pp. 649-669. In F. E. Clark and T. Rosswall (eds.) Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycles: Processes, Ecosystem Strategies, and Management Impacts. Ecol. Bull. (Sweden).
Woodmansee, R. G., I. Vallis, and J. J. Mott. 1981. Grassland nitrogen, pp. 443-462. In F. E. Clark and T. Rosswall (eds.) Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycles: Processes, Ecosystem Strategies, and Management Impacts. Ecol. Bull. (Sweden).
Mosier, A. R., M. A. Stillwell, W. J. Parton, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1981. Nitrous oxide emissions from a native shortgrass prairie. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 45:614-619.
Woodmansee, R. G., W. J. Parton, and J. L. Dodd. 1982. North American Grasslands. In McGraw-Hill 1982 Yearbook of Science and Technology. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Bolin, B., R. Cook, P. Crutzen, H. Goldberg, P. Vitousek, and R. Woodmansee. 1983. Introduction, pp. 1-39. In B. Bolin and R. B. Cook (eds.) The Major Biogeochemical Cycles and Their Interactions. SCOPE Report 21. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Woodmansee, R. G. 1984. Comparative nutrient cycles of natural and agricultural ecosystems: A step towards principles. In R. Lowrance, G. J. House, and B. R. Stenner (eds.). Agricultural Ecosystems: Unifying Concepts. John Wiley & Sons, New York. pp. 145-156.
Schimel, D. S., M. A. Stillwell, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1985. Biogeochemistry of C, N, and P in a soil catena of the shortgrass steppe. Ecology 66:276-282.
Senft, R. L., L. R. Rittenhouse, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1985. Factors influencing patterns of cattle grazing behavior on shortgrass steppe. J. Range Manage. 38:82-87.
Schimel, D. S., W. J. Parton, F. J. Adamsen, R. G. Woodmansee, R. L. Senft, and M. A. Stillwell. 1986. The role of cattle in the volatile loss of nitrogen from a shortgrass steppe. Biogeochemistry 2:39-52.
Woodmansee, R. G. 1988. Ecosystem processes and global change. In P. G. Risser, R. G. Woodmansee, and T. Rosswall (eds.). Scales and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes. SCOPE Report 35. John Wiley & Sons, London and New York. pp. 11-27.
Swanson, F. J., T. K. Kratz, N. Caine, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1988. Landform effects on ecosystem patterns and processes. BioScience 38(2):92-98.
Woodmansee, R. G. 1989. Biogeochemical cycles and ecological hierarchies. Pages 57-71 in: I. S. Zonneveld and R. T. T. Forman (eds.), Changing Landscapes: An Ecological Perspective. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Riebsame, W. E. and R. G. Woodmansee. 1993. Mapping Common Ground on Public Rangelands. In Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement. Island Press, New York. (In Press.)
Woodmansee, Robert. G. and William E. Riebsame. 1994. Evaluating the effects of climate changes on grasslands. Proc. (1993) International Grassland Congress. Palmerston North , NZ.
Fisher, Stuart G. and Robert G. Woodmansee.1994. Ecological recovery. In Background Papers for Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines. USEPA. (EPA Technical Publ. ____).
Faber, B. G., D. G. Fox, D. G. DeCoursey, R. Watts, R. G. Woodmansee and W. W. Wallace. 1993. The TERRA Laboratory: An Interagency Decision Support Environment, Proc. Air and Waste Management Assoc., 93-WA-85.01., 86th Ann. Mtn., Denver, Co.
Hautalouma, Jacob E. and Robert G. Woodmansee. 1994. New roles in ecological research and policy making. Ecol. Int. Bull. 21:1-10.
Christensen, Norman L. (Chair), Ann M. Bartuska,James H. Brown, Stephen Carpenter, Carla D' Antonio, Robert Francis, Jerry F. Franklin, James A. MacMahon, Reed F. Noss, David J. Parsons, Charles H. Peterson, Monica G. Turner, and Robert G. Woodmansee. 1996. The report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Scientific Basis of Ecosystem Management. Ecological Applications 6:665-691.