James H Speer
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4101604 |
|---|---|
| NOME | James H Speer |
| PRENOMES | James H |
| SOBRENOME | Speer |
| ASSINATURA | SPEER J H |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Indiana State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1188-0552 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 18 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 5 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 18 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2004 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Scientific Conference Report The 11th Worlddendro Conference–Beyond Boundaries
The 11th WorldDendro Conference was convened from 28 July to 1 August 2025 at Avani Victoria Falls Resort, Livingstone, Zambia. Organized by the Tree-Ring Society and hosted by the Copperbelt University, this historic edition marked the first WorldDendro meeting held on the African continent. The hybrid conference attracted more than 100 participants from 37 countries representing academia, government, industry, and civil society. Scientific sess…
Dendrochronological Applications in Zambia's Miombo Woodlands
Dendrochronology offers valuable insights into global environmental change, yet the field remains geographically biased toward northern latitudes, leaving tropical Africa relatively underrepresented. The African Dendrochronological Fieldschool (ADF) addresses this gap through training and research to expand knowledge of ring formation and environmental variation, and to build research capacity. We present case studies from the first three ADFs (2…
Scientific Meeting ReportAmeridendro 2022 in Montréal, Canada
Environmental Crises at the End of Safavid History
The 17th century was a period of transition in world history. It was marked globally by social movements emerging in response to widespread drought, famine, disease, warfare, and dislocation linked to climate change. Historians have yet to situate Safavid Iran (1501–1722) within the “General Crisis.” This article, coauthored by an environmental historian and a climate scientist, revisits primary sources and incorporates tree-ring evidence to argu…
Fire History Across Forest Types in the Southern Beartooth Mountains, Wyoming
Fire is a critical ecosystem process that has played a key role in shaping forests throughout the Beartooth Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. The highly variable topography of the area provides ideal conditions to compare fire regimes across contiguous forest types, yet pyro-dendrochronological research in this area is limited. We reconstructed fire frequency, tree age structure, and post-fire tree growth response in the Clarks Fork Ranger Distr…
Sustainability survey to assess student perspectives
Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess environmental concern at a Midwest university, analyze trends in concern over time and determine the effect of the development of a campus sustainability office. Design/methodology/approach A multi-question survey was administered through peer-to-peer recruitment from an undergraduate environmental science class each fall from 2010–2017. This exercise was originally developed as a pedagogical exercis…
College students’ understanding of social justice as sustainability
Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore college students’ understanding of sustainability and, specifically, the extent to which students see social justice as being integral to sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Between fall 2015 and 2017, an online survey study was deployed to students at a Midwestern University in the USA to assess attitudes and concerns about environmental issues and awareness of the university’s activities …
A 307-Year Tree-Ring Spei Reconstruction Indicates Modern Drought in Western Nepal Himalayas
Western Nepal has experienced a severe drought in the past two decades, but observation records across Nepal are too short to place the recent drought in a longer context to understand the full range of natural variability in the climate system. In the present study we have collected tree core samples of Tsuga dumosa from two sites, Chhetti and Ranghadi, in the Api Nampa Conservation Area of the western Nepal Himalayas to understand drought varia…
South American Dendroecological Fieldweek 2016
The South American Dendroecological Fieldweek (SADEF) associated with the Third American Dendrochronology Conference was held in El Bolsón, Argentina, in March 2016. The main objective of the SADEF was to teach the basics of dendrochronology while applying specific knowledge to selected research questions. The course included participants and instructors from six different countries. This report describes activities of the course and briefly summ…
Determination of Death Dates of Coarse Woody Debris of Multiple Species in the Central Hardwood Region (Indiana, USA)
Coarse woody debris (CWD; i.e. downed limbs and boles) serves numerous ecosystem functions, which vary according to the degree of decay. CWD decay is often described using five categories based on readily observed physical characteristics ranging from freshly fallen (Class I) to advanced decay with little structural integrity (Class V). Though useful in categorizing downed wood in a forest, these categories do not necessarily provide information …
Identifying and Separating Pandora Moth Outbreaks and Climate from A 1500-Year Ponderosa Pine Chronology from Central Oregon
We reconstruct pandora moth (Coloradia pandora Blake) outbreaks and climate from a 1572-year (435–2006 CE) ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) chronology from a lava flow in central Oregon. We took samples from 128 living trees and remnant logs and crossdated the samples using skeleton plots and COFECHA for quality control. After cutting out and removing those time periods from the chronology during which insects become the main limi…
Forgotten Waterways
The Wabash and Erie Canal system was an important transportation network in the early 1800s prior to the dominance of trains and later automotive transportation. In this work, timbers from Culvert 151 were examined, after they were exhumed during construction of Hwy 641 on the south side of Terre Haute, Indiana. Cross-sections were taken from each of 22 beams and allowed to air dry to determine the stability of the timbers. We examined the wood t…
Dendrochronology of Utah Juniper ( Juniperus osteosperma (Torr.) Little)
Utah juniper was a foundational species for the discipline of dendrochronology, having been used in the early 20th Century investigations of Mesa Verde, but has been largely ignored by dendrochronologists since. Here we present dendrochronological investigations of Utah juniper core and cross-sectional samples from four sites in northern Utah. We demonstrate that, contrary to the general opinion among many dendrochronologists, Utah juniper exhibi…
Signal Strength In Sub-Annual Tree-Ring Chronologies from Pinus ponderosa In Northern New Mexico
The creation of chronologies from intra-annual features in tree rings is increasingly utilized in dendrochronology to create season-specific climate histories, among other applications. A conifer latewood-width network has recently been developed for the southwestern United States, but considerable uncertainty remains in understanding site and species differences in signal strength and sample depth requirements. As part of the 22nd annual North A…
Ecological Applications of Dendrochronology in Archaeology
Dendroarchaeology became established with A.E. Douglass' (1929) classic paper in National Geographic Magazine, dating approximately 45 ruins throughout the southwestern United States. Since then, dendrochronology has established the occupation sequences of numerous archaeological sites and has been used to describe past climatic conditions experienced by native and historical populations. The technique of dendrochronology has continued to expand …
Research Report Age Dependence of Spiral Grain in White Oaks (Quercus alba L.) in Southwestern Illinois
Dendrochronologists have used the presence of spiral grain as an indicator of old trees for most of the history of the field, although this relationship has been little studied. We examined cross-sections from dead trees and used a 12-mm Haglof Swedish Increment borer to collect cores from living white oak (Quercus alba L.) trees in an Eastern Deciduous Forest stand in southwestern Illinois. Spiral grain is the alignment of wood fibers to the lon…
Effects of Pandora Moth Outbreaks on Ponderosa Pine Wood Volume
Coloradia pandora (Blake) is a phytophagous insect that defoliates Pinus ponderosa (Dougl. ex Laws.) in south-central Oregon. Little is known about the extent of damage this insect inflicts upon its host trees during an outbreak. In this paper, we present stem analyses on four dominant Pinus ponderosa trees that enable us to determine the amount of volume lost during each Coloradia pandora outbreak on this site for the past 450 years. We found th…
Assessing the dendrochronological potential of Pinus occidentalis Swartz in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic
Opportunities for dendrochronology in the tropics are rare because few locations experience sesonality strong enough to induce annual (or even dependably cyclic) ring formation in trees. Consequently, any such opportunities that exist are valuable and identifying them is worth investing time and effort. West Indian pine (Pinus occidentalis Swartz) is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (l9°N, 71°W). It has prviously been shown not to produce usef…
Environmental Crises at the End of Safavid History
The 17th century was a period of transition in world history. It was marked globally by social movements emerging in response to widespread drought, famine, disease, warfare, and dislocation linked to climate change. Historians have yet to situate Safavid Iran (1501–1722) within the “General Crisis.” This article, coauthored by an environmental historian and a climate scientist, revisits primary sources and incorporates tree-ring evidence to argu…
Assessing the dendrochronological potential of Pinus occidentalis Swartz in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic
Opportunities for dendrochronology in the tropics are rare because few locations experience sesonality strong enough to induce annual (or even dependably cyclic) ring formation in trees. Consequently, any such opportunities that exist are valuable and identifying them is worth investing time and effort. West Indian pine (Pinus occidentalis Swartz) is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (l9°N, 71°W). It has prviously been shown not to produce usef…
Effects of Pandora Moth Outbreaks on Ponderosa Pine Wood Volume
Coloradia pandora (Blake) is a phytophagous insect that defoliates Pinus ponderosa (Dougl. ex Laws.) in south-central Oregon. Little is known about the extent of damage this insect inflicts upon its host trees during an outbreak. In this paper, we present stem analyses on four dominant Pinus ponderosa trees that enable us to determine the amount of volume lost during each Coloradia pandora outbreak on this site for the past 450 years. We found th…
Assessing the dendrochronological potential of Pinus occidentalis Swartz in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic
Opportunities for dendrochronology in the tropics are rare because few locations experience sesonality strong enough to induce annual (or even dependably cyclic) ring formation in trees. Consequently, any such opportunities that exist are valuable and identifying them is worth investing time and effort. West Indian pine (Pinus occidentalis Swartz) is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (l9°N, 71°W). It has prviously been shown not to produce usef…
Research Report Age Dependence of Spiral Grain in White Oaks (Quercus alba L.) in Southwestern Illinois
Dendrochronologists have used the presence of spiral grain as an indicator of old trees for most of the history of the field, although this relationship has been little studied. We examined cross-sections from dead trees and used a 12-mm Haglof Swedish Increment borer to collect cores from living white oak (Quercus alba L.) trees in an Eastern Deciduous Forest stand in southwestern Illinois. Spiral grain is the alignment of wood fibers to the lon…
Ecological Applications of Dendrochronology in Archaeology
Dendroarchaeology became established with A.E. Douglass' (1929) classic paper in National Geographic Magazine, dating approximately 45 ruins throughout the southwestern United States. Since then, dendrochronology has established the occupation sequences of numerous archaeological sites and has been used to describe past climatic conditions experienced by native and historical populations. The technique of dendrochronology has continued to expand …
Signal Strength In Sub-Annual Tree-Ring Chronologies from Pinus ponderosa In Northern New Mexico
The creation of chronologies from intra-annual features in tree rings is increasingly utilized in dendrochronology to create season-specific climate histories, among other applications. A conifer latewood-width network has recently been developed for the southwestern United States, but considerable uncertainty remains in understanding site and species differences in signal strength and sample depth requirements. As part of the 22nd annual North A…
Forgotten Waterways
The Wabash and Erie Canal system was an important transportation network in the early 1800s prior to the dominance of trains and later automotive transportation. In this work, timbers from Culvert 151 were examined, after they were exhumed during construction of Hwy 641 on the south side of Terre Haute, Indiana. Cross-sections were taken from each of 22 beams and allowed to air dry to determine the stability of the timbers. We examined the wood t…
Dendrochronology of Utah Juniper ( Juniperus osteosperma (Torr.) Little)
Utah juniper was a foundational species for the discipline of dendrochronology, having been used in the early 20th Century investigations of Mesa Verde, but has been largely ignored by dendrochronologists since. Here we present dendrochronological investigations of Utah juniper core and cross-sectional samples from four sites in northern Utah. We demonstrate that, contrary to the general opinion among many dendrochronologists, Utah juniper exhibi…
Identifying and Separating Pandora Moth Outbreaks and Climate from A 1500-Year Ponderosa Pine Chronology from Central Oregon
We reconstruct pandora moth (Coloradia pandora Blake) outbreaks and climate from a 1572-year (435–2006 CE) ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) chronology from a lava flow in central Oregon. We took samples from 128 living trees and remnant logs and crossdated the samples using skeleton plots and COFECHA for quality control. After cutting out and removing those time periods from the chronology during which insects become the main limi…
South American Dendroecological Fieldweek 2016
The South American Dendroecological Fieldweek (SADEF) associated with the Third American Dendrochronology Conference was held in El Bolsón, Argentina, in March 2016. The main objective of the SADEF was to teach the basics of dendrochronology while applying specific knowledge to selected research questions. The course included participants and instructors from six different countries. This report describes activities of the course and briefly summ…
Determination of Death Dates of Coarse Woody Debris of Multiple Species in the Central Hardwood Region (Indiana, USA)
Coarse woody debris (CWD; i.e. downed limbs and boles) serves numerous ecosystem functions, which vary according to the degree of decay. CWD decay is often described using five categories based on readily observed physical characteristics ranging from freshly fallen (Class I) to advanced decay with little structural integrity (Class V). Though useful in categorizing downed wood in a forest, these categories do not necessarily provide information …
A 307-Year Tree-Ring Spei Reconstruction Indicates Modern Drought in Western Nepal Himalayas
Western Nepal has experienced a severe drought in the past two decades, but observation records across Nepal are too short to place the recent drought in a longer context to understand the full range of natural variability in the climate system. In the present study we have collected tree core samples of Tsuga dumosa from two sites, Chhetti and Ranghadi, in the Api Nampa Conservation Area of the western Nepal Himalayas to understand drought varia…
Fire History Across Forest Types in the Southern Beartooth Mountains, Wyoming
Fire is a critical ecosystem process that has played a key role in shaping forests throughout the Beartooth Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. The highly variable topography of the area provides ideal conditions to compare fire regimes across contiguous forest types, yet pyro-dendrochronological research in this area is limited. We reconstructed fire frequency, tree age structure, and post-fire tree growth response in the Clarks Fork Ranger Distr…
Sustainability survey to assess student perspectives
Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess environmental concern at a Midwest university, analyze trends in concern over time and determine the effect of the development of a campus sustainability office. Design/methodology/approach A multi-question survey was administered through peer-to-peer recruitment from an undergraduate environmental science class each fall from 2010–2017. This exercise was originally developed as a pedagogical exercis…
College students’ understanding of social justice as sustainability
Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore college students’ understanding of sustainability and, specifically, the extent to which students see social justice as being integral to sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Between fall 2015 and 2017, an online survey study was deployed to students at a Midwestern University in the USA to assess attitudes and concerns about environmental issues and awareness of the university’s activities …
Environmental Crises at the End of Safavid History
The 17th century was a period of transition in world history. It was marked globally by social movements emerging in response to widespread drought, famine, disease, warfare, and dislocation linked to climate change. Historians have yet to situate Safavid Iran (1501–1722) within the “General Crisis.” This article, coauthored by an environmental historian and a climate scientist, revisits primary sources and incorporates tree-ring evidence to argu…
Scientific Meeting ReportAmeridendro 2022 in Montréal, Canada
Scientific Conference Report The 11th Worlddendro Conference–Beyond Boundaries
The 11th WorldDendro Conference was convened from 28 July to 1 August 2025 at Avani Victoria Falls Resort, Livingstone, Zambia. Organized by the Tree-Ring Society and hosted by the Copperbelt University, this historic edition marked the first WorldDendro meeting held on the African continent. The hybrid conference attracted more than 100 participants from 37 countries representing academia, government, industry, and civil society. Scientific sess…
Dendrochronological Applications in Zambia's Miombo Woodlands
Dendrochronology offers valuable insights into global environmental change, yet the field remains geographically biased toward northern latitudes, leaving tropical Africa relatively underrepresented. The African Dendrochronological Fieldschool (ADF) addresses this gap through training and research to expand knowledge of ring formation and environmental variation, and to build research capacity. We present case studies from the first three ADFs (2…
Geography (13 obras) · Biology (12 obras) · Tree-ring climate responses (12 obras) · Archaeology (11 obras) · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics (10 obras) · Dendrochronology (9 obras) · Ecology (9 obras) · Forestry (7 obras) · Physical geography (7 obras) · Chronology (6 obras)