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John W. (Jack) Williams

WILLIAMS LAB

Paleoecology – Paleoclimatology – Global Change

Research

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My research interests center on ecological responses to climate change and the two-way interactions between the terrestrial biosphere and atmosphere. Most of my work has focused upon late-Quaternary vegetational and environmental change. This is a particularly exciting time to study because 1) it includes large and in some cases quite rapid changes in climate, atmospheric CO2, solar radiation, and ice sheet extent, 2) these environmental changes transformed the distribution of plant taxa and the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, 3) numerous well-dated paleoclimatic and paleoecological records enable spatially explicit reconstructions of vegetation and climate history, and 4) Quaternary history sets the context for present-day biogeographic patterns and current challenges in global change research. 

My training and research approach are fairly broad. I look for ways to apply the lessons drawn from late-Quaternary vegetation dynamics to current questions in global change research, and I work at the interface between data and models, with an emphasis upon quantitative analyses of ecological datasets and mechanistic models of the vegetation and climate system. Much of my recent work has focused on mapping late-Quaternary vegetation history and land cover change in North America, using networks of paleoecological records, with the goal of developing benchmark datasets for refining and testing earth system models. These maps also generate new questions and hypotheses, thus serving as a starting point for further field-based research.

Teaching

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