413 South Hardin Hall or 203 Keim Hall
Hi, I'm David Wedin, professor in plant and ecosystem ecology at the School of Natural Resources and the Director of the Center for Grassland Studies.
I split my time between an the office in 413 South Hardin Hall and 203 Keim Hall (EC 0953).
My research interests include grassland and savanna ecology, carbon and nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, landscape ecology and fire ecology. They also include nitrogen-use-efficiency and resource allocation in plants, and stable isotope studies of plant-soil feedbacks.
Current research projects in Nebraska include the Sandhills Biocomplexity Project, subtitled "Spatiotemporal coupling of ecological and geological dynamics in the Nebraska Sandhills," and the ecosystem consequences of ponderosa pine establishment in the Nebraska Sandhills at the planted Nebraska National Forest at Halsey.
In the biocomplexity project that I co-lead with two other researchers, 15 total co-investigators from diverse disciplines will use a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to take an integrated approach to studying the dynamics of the Nebraska Sandhills from the last few thousand years to today, particularly the interactions of water, dunes and vegetation as the grass cover is stripped or recovers. The Sandhills are a model system for biocomplexity studies, in particular studies that integrate the perspectives of ecologists and geologists to understand how ecological interactions, geomorphology (landscape structure and development) and climate interact to shape a landscape.
Regarding pine establishment in the Sandhills, revisiting in a mosophisticated way the notions of landscape influence on climate, near the end of the 20th century, hypotheses that changes in land cover may have significant feedbacks on climate at various scales returned to the fore in ecology and biogeochemistry. The documented site history, relatively uniform soils and age (70 years on average) of the experimental ponderosa pine plantings at NNF make them uniquely suited to address these issues in the Great Plains.
Before coming to UI was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Botany at the University of Toronto from 1992-1998.
I chaired the Initiative in Ecological and Evolutionary Analysis Graduate Students Grant program in spring 2000.
I was a guest instructor in April 1999Interactions between Element Cycles and Ecosystems, a graduate course at Wageningen Agricultural University in The Netherlands. From 1997-2000, I was associate editor of American Naturalist. In 1997, I was a member of the Ontario Graduate Scholarships Review Panel, and in 1996 I was a member of the Conservation and Restoration Biology Grant Review Panel of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Currently this page only displays grants that were awarded on 1/1/ 2009 to the present. If a grant was awarded prior to 1/1/ 2009 and is still active, it will not be displayed on this page.
Master of Applied Science
Master of Science in Natural Resource Sciencesincluding specializations in
Doctorate of Philosophy in Natural Resource Sciencesincluding specializations in