Ph.D. from Cornell University in forest science, May 1994.
B.S. from Yale University in biology, May 1985.

Professor of forest ecology, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley, July 2009 to present

Associate/assistant professor of forest ecology, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley, January 1995 to June 2009

Postdoctoral research associate, Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, January 1994 - December 1994.

The goal of our lab is to know how and why forests change. Given the scope of human enterprise (e.g., pollution, land transformations, biotic additions and losses), many forest ecosystems are experiencing fundamentally novel challenges. In the face of this uncertainty, we need to understand the dynamics well enough to anticipate the likely direction and magnitude of responses. These insights must apply to forests in the real world with all the attendant complexities. Therefore robust, quantitative field studies form the core of my research program. The objective is to produce answers to pertinent questions that a physicist accepts as valid and that a naturalist acknowledges as authentic. Currently our research centers on three basic questions: 1) the interactive control of the disturbance regime on ecosystem processes; 2) the explicit effects of tree demography on community composition and ecosystem function; and 3) the mechanisms of resource capture and allocation in forests under conditions of multiple resource limitation.

Board of Editors, Ecology; Departmental Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence; Hellman Family Junior Faculty Award

Yanai, R.D., J.J. Battles, A. D. Richardson, C.A. Blodgett, D.M. Wood, and E.B. Rastetter. In press. Estimating uncertainty in ecosystems budgets. Ecosystems.

Stella, J.C., J. J. Battles, and J.R. McBride and B. K. Orr. In press. Riparian seedling mortality from simulated water table recession, and the design of sustainable flow regimes on regulated rivers. Restoration Ecology.

Collins, B.M., S.L. Stephens, J. J. Moghaddas, and J.J. Battles. In press. Challenges and approaches in planning fuel treatments across fire-excluded forested landscapes. Journal of Forestry.

Fahey, T.J., P.B. Woodbury, J.J. Battles, S. Ollinger, S. Hamburg, C. Woodall, and C. Goodale. In Press. Forest Carbon: Ecology, Management and Policy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

York, R.A., J. J. Battles, A.K. Eschtruth, and F. G. Schurr. In press. Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) regeneration in experimental canopy gaps. Restoration Ecology.

Eschtruth, A.K. and J.J. Battles. 2009. Acceleration of exotic plant invasion in a forested ecosystem by a generalist herbivore. Conservation Biology 23:388-399.

Eschtruth, A.K. and J.J. Battles. 2009. Assessing the relative importance of disturbance, herbivory, species diversity, and propagule pressure in exotic plant invasion. Ecological Monographs 79:265-280.

Das, A., J.J. Battles, N.L. Stephenson, and P.J. van Mantgem. 2008. Spatial elements of mortality risk in old-growth forests. Ecology 89: 1744-1756.

Cleavitt, N. L., Eschtruth, A. K., Battles, J. J. and Fahey, T. J. 2008. Bryophyte responses to eastern hemlock decline following a hemlock woolly adelgid infestation. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 135: 12-25.

Eschtruth, A.K and J.J. Battles. 2008. Deer herbivory alters forest response to canopy decline caused by an exotic insect pest. Ecological Applications 18: 360-376.

Battles, J.J., T. Robards, A. Das, K. Waring, J.K. Gilless, G. Biging, and F. Schurr. 2008. Climate change impacts on forest growth and tree mortality: a data-driven modeling study in a mixed-conifer forest of the Sierra Nevada. Climatic Change 87: S193-S213.

Menning, K. M., J. J. Battles, and T. L. Benning. 2007. Quantifying change in distributions: A new departure index that detects, measures and describes change in distributions from population structures, size-classes and other ordered data. Oecologia 154(1): 75-84.

York, R.A., J. J. Battles, and R.C. Heald. 2007. Depth of positive edge effect on mature trees surrounding group selection openings. Western Journal of Applied Forestry.

Das, A., J.J. Battles, N.L. Stephenson, and P.J. van Mantgem. 2007.The relationship between tree growth patterns and likelihood of mortality: a study of two tree species in the Sierra Nevada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 580-597.

Stella, J.C., J. J. Battles, B. K. Orr, J.R. McBride. 2006. Synchrony of seed dispersal, hydrology and local climate in a semi-arid river reach in California. Ecosystems 9: 1200-1214.

York, R.A., J. J. Battles, and R. C. Heald. 2006. Release potential of giant sequoia following heavy suppression: 20 year results. Forest Ecology and Management 234: 136-142.

Eschtruth, A.K., N. L. Cleavitt, J. J. Battles, R. A. Evans, and T. J. Fahey. 2006. Vegetation dynamics in declining hemlock stands: nine years of forest response to hemlock woolly adelgid infestation. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 36:1435-1450.

Wenk, R. C., J. J. Battles, R. D. Jackson, J. W. Bartolome, and B. Allen-Diaz. 2006. An accurate and efficient method for sorting root cores using point-intercept sampling. Soil Sci Soc Am J 70: 851-855.

Kayler, Z.E, L. B. Fortini, and J. J. Battles. 2006. Group selection edge effects on the vascular plant community of a Sierra Nevada old growth forest. Madrono 52: 262-266.

Anne K. Eschtruth

Natalie Solomonoff; Maya Hayden; Flora Krivak-Tetley

Timothy Fahey

Senior scientist contributing to research in forest community ecology and tree population dynamics