Ron Neilson
Pacific Northwest Research Station
I became a bioclimatologist because I like to be in the woods. Bioclimatologists study the relationship of living things to their climate. Climate is the average weather of an area over a long period of time. This can be months, years, or hundreds of years. As a young scientist, I began to compare different plants with their climate. I asked this question: How do different kinds of plants grow, reproduce, and die, while living where they do? After about 15 years, I began to build models to better understand where plants live. Models are representations of something. In this case, my models were built on a computer. My models, unlike model cars or airplanes, were built from numbers. I compared different kinds of plants with the climate of their area. You will learn about these kinds of models in this article. By building computer models, I can better understand and predict what might happen to plants as their climate changes. It is great to be able to spend my time learning about the woods!
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Additional Resources
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USDA Forest Service: Ron Neilson
Learn more about Ron Neilson's research at his Forest Service profile page.Visit Profile