Martin DovciakAssociate Professor

459 Illick Hall
1 Forestry Drive
Syracuse, NY 13210

315-470-6749 | 315-470-6743
mdovciak@esf.edu

Research Interests: Plant Ecology, Forest Ecosystems, Global Environmental Change, Biodiversity, Ecosystem Management and Restoration.

CV and Lab Homepage

Courses Taught:

• Plant Ecology & Global Change
• Flowering Plants: Diversity, Evolution & Systematics
• Tropical Ecology (Co-taught)   
• Global Change Ecology Seminar
• Impacts of Deer on Forests Seminar (Co-taught)
• Adaptive Peaks Seminar (Co-taught)
• Natural Resource Management
• Landscape Ecology
• Foundations of Ecology

Examples of Current and Recent Support:

• National Science Foundation; $322,992; 2018-2021. “Linking Forest Regeneration, Plant Distributions, and Ecotone Dynamics in Changing Mountain Environments”. M. Dovciak (PI).
• USDA McIntire-Stennis Program; $61,784; 2018-2020. "Recent Changes and Future Trajectories of an Ecosystem at the Crossroads: Implications for Planning, Management, and Conservation of Long Island Pine Barrens". M. Dovciak (PI), T. Green, K. Schwager.
• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; $312,213; 2013-2018. “Evaluating Deer Impacts on Forests of New York State”. M. Dovciak (PI), J. Frair, J. Hurst, P. Curtis, P. Smallidge.
• NYSERDA; $200,000; 2015-2017. “Effects of acidic deposition and soil acidification on forest understory plant biodiversity in the Adirondack Mountains”. T. Sullivan (PI), M. Dovciak, G. Lawrence, T. McDonnell ($87,001 to M. Dovciak).
• Electric Power Research Institute; $414,551; 2012-2016. “Cost effectiveness of cleaning techniques for controlling human-based transport of invasive exotic plants on electric transmission line rights-of-way across New York”. C. Nowak (PI), M. Dovciak ($176,184 to M. Dovciak).

Selected Publications (* graduate or ** undergraduate advisee; Complete publication list is here):

• Berdugo MB *, Dovciak M (2019) Bryophytes in fir waves: Forest canopy indicator species and functional diversity decline in canopy gaps. Journal of Vegetation Science, 30: 235–246.
• Zarfos MR *, Dovciak M, Lawrence GB, McDonnell TC, Sullivan TJ (2019) Plant richness and composition in hardwood forest understories vary along an acidic deposition and soil-chemical gradient in northeastern United States. Plant and Soil 438: 461–477.
• Berdugo MB *, Quant JM *, Wason JW *, Dovciak M (2018) Latitudinal patterns and environmental drivers of moss layer cover in extratropical forests. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27: 1213–1224.
• Wason JW *, Dovciak M (2017) Tree demography suggests multiple directions and drivers for species range shifts in mountains of Northeastern United States. Global Change Biology, 23: 3335–3347.
• Wason JW *, Bevilacqua E, Dovciak M (2017) Climates on the move: Implications of climate warming for species distributions in mountains of the northeastern United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 246: 272–280.
• Wason JW *, Dovciak M, Beier CM, Battles JJ (2017) Tree growth is more sensitive than species distributions to recent changes in climate and acidic deposition in the northeastern United States. Journal of Applied Ecology, 54: 1648-1657.
• Alvarez-Yepiz JC *, Burquez A, Martinez-Yrizar A, Teece M, Yepez EA, Dovciak M (2017) Resource partitioning by evergreen and deciduous species in a tropical dry forest. Oecologia 183: 607–618.
• Jaloviar P, Saniga M, Kucbel S, Pittner J, Vencurik J, Dovciak M (2017). Seven decades of change in a European old-growth forest following a stand-replacing wind disturbance: A long-term case study. Forest Ecology and Management 399: 197–205.
• Dovciak M, Hrivnak R, Ujhazy K, Gomory D (2015) Patterns of grassland invasions by trees: insights from demographic and genetic spatial analyses. Journal of Plant Ecology 8: 468–479.
• Alvarez-Yepiz JC *, Dovciak M (2015) Enhancing ecosystem function through conservation: threatened plants increase local carbon storage in tropical dry forests. Tropical Conservation Science 8: 999–1008.
• Alvarez–Yepiz JC *, Burquez A, Dovciak M (2014) Ontogenetic shifts in plant-plant interactions in a rare cycad within angiosperm communities. Oecologia 175: 725–735.
• Dovciak M, Brown J** (2014) Secondary edge effects in regenerating forest landscapes: vegetation and microclimate patterns and their implications for management and conservation. New Forests 45: 733–744.
• Frelich LE, Peterson RO, Dovciak M, Reich PB, Vucetich JA, Eisenhauer N (2012) Trophic cascades, invasive species, and body-size hierarchies interactively modulate climate change responses of ecotonal temperate-boreal forest. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367: 2955–2961.
• Halpern CB, Halaj J, Evans SA, Dovciak M (2012) Level and pattern of overstory retention interact to shape long-term responses of understories to timber harvest. Ecological Applications 22: 2049–2064.
• Dovciak M, Halpern CB (2010) Positive diversity-stability relationships in forest herb populations during four decades of community assembly. Ecology Letters 13: 1300–1309.
• Dovciak M, Frelich LE, Reich PB (2005) Pathways in old-field succession to white pine: seed rain, shade, and climate effects. Ecological Monographs 75: 363–378.
• Dovciak M, Frelich LE, Reich PB (2001) Discordance in spatial patterns of white pine (Pinus strobus) size-classes in a patchy near-boreal forest. Journal of Ecology 89: 280–291.