University of Massachusetts
Department of Natural Resources Conservation
Forestry Graduate Faculty

Dr. Patterson became interested in fire ecology as an undergraduate and focused his graduate degree research on fire effects, fire history studies, and the application of fire research to vegetation management. He currently teaches courses in forest ecology and measurements, fire control, and fire management. He has served as an instructor for The Nature Conservancy's Basic and Advanced Ecological Burning Workshops and is a graduate of and instructor for the Rx-90 Burn Boss Course. He was one of the first NPS-certified burn bosses in the Northeast. His research during the past 15 years began with fire history studies in northwest Alaska and in New England and currently involves prescribed burning experiments in North Atlantic pine-oak forests and barrens. He has taken sabbaticals as a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University and as a visiting research scientist at CSIRO, Canberra, Australia. For his work in implementing prescribed fire in New England, he received The Nature Conservancy's President's Stewardship Award and the New England Wildflower Society's Conservation Award.

Current Projects:

• Prescribed Fire Management of the Hollis, Maine Barrens
• Fire Management Mapping and Fuel Model Behavior Prediction - Cape Cod National Seashore
• 1998 Vegetation Restoration Work
• Preliminary Fire and Vegetation History for the Hyannis Ponds Area, Massachusetts
• Fire Management Planning and Natural Community Restoration on Martha's Vinyard, MA
• Fuel Load Measurement and Custom Fuel Model Development - Ossipee, NH and Waterboro, ME
• Fire History and Fire Management Planning for the Massachusetts Military Reservation

Research Data Available On-Line:

• Spring phenology of woody species in Cadwell Memorial Forest, Pelham, MA

Selected Recent Publications:

Motzkin, G. H., W. A. Patterson III, and D. R. Foster. 1999. A historical perspective on pitch pine-scrub oak communities in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. Ecosystems 2: 255-273.

Bradbury, J. P., G. Dubay, J. G. Goldammer, and W. A. Patterson III. 1997. Report of the working discussion groups. pp. 463-482 in J.S. Clark, H. Cachier, J.G. Goldammer, and B. Stocks (eds.) Sediment Records of Biomass Burning and Global Change. NATO ASI series. Series I, Global Environmental Change; no. 51. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

Clark, J. S. and W. A. Patterson III. 1997. Background and local charcoal in sediments: Scales of fire evidence in the paleorecord. pp. 23-48 in J.S. Clark, H. Cachier, J.G. Goldammer, and B. Stocks (eds.) Sediment Records of Biomass Burning and Global Change. NATO ASI series. Series I, Global Environmental Change; no. 51. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

Dunwiddie, P.W., W.A. Patterson III, J.L. Rudnicky, and R.E. Zaremba. 1997. Vegetation management in coastal grasslands on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts: Effects of burning and mowing from 1982-1993. pp. 85-98 in P.D. Vickery and P.W. Dunwiddie (eds.) Grasslands of northeastern North America: ecology and conservation of native and agricultural landscapes. Massachusetts Audubon Society, Lincoln, MA.

Rudnicky, J.L., W.A. Patterson III, and R.P. Cook. 1997. Experimental use of prescribed fire for managing grassland bird habitat at Floyd Bennett Field. pp. 99-118 in P.D. Vickery and P.W. Dunwiddie (eds.) Grasslands of northeastern North America: ecology and conservation of native and agricultural landscapes. Massachusetts Audubon Society, Lincoln, MA.

Woodcook, H., K. M. Davies, Jr. and W. A. Patterson III. 1997. Ash decline in Massachusetts: Stand risk assessment using site factors. Northern Journal of Applied Forestry 14(1): 10-15.

Aizen, M. A. and W. A. Patterson III. 1995. Leaf phenology and herbivory along a topographically determined temperature gradient: a test spatial test of the phenological window hypothesis. Journal of Vegetation Science 6:543-550

Dunwiddie, P. W., W. A. Patterson III and R. E. Zaremba. 1995. Evaluating changes in vegetation from permanent plots: An example from sandplain grasslands in Massachusetts. pp. 245-250 in Ecosystem Monitoring and Protected Areas edited by T.B. Herman, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, J.H. Martin Willison, & N.W.P Munro. Science and Management of Protected Areas Association, Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Curriculum vitae (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

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