Plant Biology

Jeffrey W. Hughes

Associate Professor of Plant Biology
Associate Professor of Natural Resources
Director of the Field Naturalist Graduate Program

Ph.D. 1987, Cornell University

Email: Jeffrey.Hughes@uvm.edu

Phone: 802-656-0708

Office: 267 Jeffords Hall

Research area: Forest Ecology, Communities and Ecosystems

Courses Taught: Environmental Problem Solving & Impact Assessment (NR 206); Field Naturalist Practicum (PBIO 311); Fundamentals of Field Science (PBIO 223); Forest Ecosystem Analysis (FOR 122); Community & Sense of Place: Reading the Vermont Landscape (VS 095); Forestry Techniques (FOR 285)

Summary of Research Program

Most of my research is conducted in Vermont and at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. Students sometimes drag me westward, however.

I'm interested and involved in too many things, but two research interests predominate: ecosystem responses to events that upset the ecological status quo, and dynamics of ecotones, especially stream corridors and roads.

Current research initiatives include trying to figure out: (i) how wide riparian zones need to be to conserve plant and animal populations, (ii) ways by which riparian zones might be managed to protect streams from upslope pollutants, and (iii) how roads (abandoned and active) impact the surrounding and future forest. In addition, I'm just now completing a detailed demographic analysis of sugar maple growing at the limits of its ecological range as a way of perhaps and predicting the effects of climatic/atmospheric change on forest ecosystems.

Selected Publications

• Hughes, J. W. (200X). Survival Skills Handbook for Frenzied Environmental Crusaders. In Review, University Press of New England.
• Hughes, J. W. and A. P. Devine. (200X). How to Build a Grizzly Bear (a slightly unorthodox guide to ecological principals). In Review, Ten Speed Press.
• Hughes, J. W. and W. H. Blackwell. (2007). Environmental Problem Solving: A How-To Guide. University of Vermont Press, University Press of New England.
• Hughes, J. W., W. E. Jokela, D. Wang, and C. Borer. (1999). Determination and Quantification of Factors Controlling Pollutant Delivery from Agricultural Land to Streams in the Lake Champlain Basin. Lake Champlain Technical Report
• Meiklejohn, B. A. and J. W. Hughes. (1999). Bird communities in riparian buffer strips of industrial forests. American Midland Naturalist 141: 172-184.
• Hughes, J. W. and D. A. Bechtel. (1997). Effect of distance form forest edge on regeneration of red spruce and balsam fir in clearcuts. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 27: 2088-2096.
• Hughes, J.W. and W.B. Cass. (1997). Pattern and process of a floodplain forest, Vermont, USA: predicted response of vegetation to perturbation. Journal of Applied Ecology 34: 594-612.
• Spackman, S.C. and J.W. Hughes. (1995). Assessment of minimum stream corridor width for biological conservation: species richness and distribution along mid-order streams in Vermont, USA. Biological Conservation 71: 325-332.
• Hughes, J.W. and T.J. Fahey. (1994). Litterfall dynamics and ecosystem recovery during forest development. Forest Ecology and Management 63:181-198.
• Fahey, T.J. and J.W. Hughes. (1994). Fine root dynamics in a northern hardwood forest ecosystem, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, NH. Journal of Ecology 82: 533-548.
• Mou, P., T.J. Fahey, J.W. Hughes. (1993). Effects of soil disturbance on vegetation recovery and nutrient accumulation following large-scale disturbance of a northern hardwood ecosystem. Journal of Applied Ecology 30:661-675.
• Hughes, J. W. (1992). Effect of removal of co-occurring species on distribution and abundance of Erythronium americanum (Liliaceae), a spring ephemeral. American Journal of Botany 79:1329-1336.
• Hughes, J. W. and T.J. Fahey. (1991). Colonization dynamics of herbs and shrubs in a disturbed northern hardwood forest. Journal of Ecology 79: 605-616.