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Staff Directory

Plant Science — OUR SCIENTISTS

Daniel Larkin, Ph.D.

Conservation Scientist, Community Ecology

David Byron Smith Family Curator of Native Habitats

Ph.D., Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006

PUBLICATIONS
(847) 835-6931

Graduate Faculty Memberships

Northwestern University, Plant Biology and Conservation
Illinois Institute of Technology, Landscape Architecture

Research Interests

• Restoration ecology
• Invasive species
• Community ecology
• Wetland ecology

Statement

Ecological restoration, "the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed" (Society for Ecological Restoration International), is a vital conservation strategy that is difficult to do well. I am interested in what factors constrain the recovery of degraded habitats, and the extent to which different restoration approaches can overcome those constraints.

For example, invasive plant species can profoundly alter the habitats they invade, decreasing local diversity of plants and animals and changing aspects of the physical and chemical environment, nutrient cycling, and other processes. Restoration is not just a matter of removing the invasive species itself, but of dealing with the legacy invasion leaves behind.

My students and I conduct research to better understand the process of ecological recovery, the factors that limit restoration effectiveness, and the ability of restored sites to perform key functions and services such as biodiversity support, carbon storage, and nutrient cycling.

Ongoing projects include the following:

• Effects of Rhamnus cathartica (buckthorn) invasion and woodland restoration on carbon-storage ecosystem services (with Jim Steffen)
• Effects of prairie restoration on native bee communities (Ph.D. student Becky Tonietto)
• Control of Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) (with Joan O'Shaughnessy and M.S. student Jennifer Alyah)
• Measuring restoration effectiveness in the Colorado Plateau (with Jeremie Fant, Krissa Skogen, and Emily Yates)
• Genetics and ecology of Phragmites australis (common reed) invasion (with Jeremie Fant and M.S. student Amy Price)
• Nutrient cycling in restored wetlands (Ph.D. student Paul Hartzog)
• Effects of plant-community structure and restoration on use of wetlands by secretive marsh birds

Selected publications

Tuchman, N.C., D.J. Larkin, P. Geddes, R. Wildova, K.J. Jankowski, and D.E. Goldberg. 2009. Patterns of environmental change associated with Typha x glauca invasion in a Great Lakes coastal wetland. Wetlands 29:964-975.

Larkin, D.J., J.M. West, and J.B. Zedler. 2009. Created pools increase food availability for fishes in a restored salt marsh. Ecological Engineering 35:65-74.

Zedler, J.B., C.L. Bonin, D.J. Larkin, and A. Varty. 2008. Salt marshes. Encyclopedia of Ecology, S.E. Jorgensen and B.D. Fath, eds. Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 3132-3141.

Larkin, D.J., S.P. Madon, J.M. West, and J.B. Zedler. 2008. Topographic heterogeneity influences fish use of an experimentally restored tidal marsh. Ecological Applications 18:483-496.

Zedler, J.B., D.A. Falk, and D.J. Larkin. 2007. Upstart views of restoration icons. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 88:104-112.

Larkin, D.J., G. Vivian-Smith, and J.B. Zedler. 2006. Topographic heterogeneity: Theory and ecological restoration. Foundations of Restoration Ecology, D.A. Falk, M.A. Palmer, and J.B. Zedler, eds. Island Press: Washington, D.C., pp. 142-164.