The Bartels Research Lab at UNBC
Lab Members
Samuel Bartels, Principal Investigator
Samuel Bartels is fascinated by the structural organization and biological composition (including trees, shrub and herbaceous species, fungi, bryophyte, and lichen communities) of forests and terrestrial ecosystems and conducts investigations into how their diversity, species interactions, and functions are impacted by environmental changes caused by humans.
Current lab members
Julia Bizon, MSc. Candidate 2023-
Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, and having completed her BSc in Biology at UBC Vancouver, Julia is slowly making her way North. She is interested in the impacts of human land use and climate change and is focused on solution-based approaches to the rapidly changing environment. For her master's project, she is studying ecosystem memory and ecological restoration of wildlife forage and understory diversity in a young pine monoculture plantation in Central-Interior BC. Her project concerns regrowth of understory vegetation after disturbance, with a focus on the efficacy of forest management practices to support wildlife.
Simran Gill, MSc. Candidate, 2022-
Hailing from Punjab, India, and completing B.Sc. in Agricultural Science from Punjab Agricultural University, Simran chose to study at the University of Northern British Columbia to expand her horizons and explore the concepts of plant science and environmental interactions. She is studying the impact of combinations of different nitrogen and iron compounds on the health of broadleaf weeds (mainly dandelions and white clover) in turfgrass system to find an environmentally safer method of broadleaf weed control in lawns. She has conducted trials under environmentally controlled conditions and natural conditions to find the most effective combination to help reduce the negative impacts of chemical herbicides on the environment.
Sarah Rivers, MSc. (incoming 2024)
Past members/ Alumni
Lainie Shandro, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2024. A review of management responses to spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle in British Columbia.
Nolan Buchi, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2023. The role of silviculture in mitigating the adverse effects of drought in British Columbia's forests.
Gareth Anderson, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2022. Fire risk potential of different coarse woody debris retention techniques in British Columbia.
Graeme McGuffie, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2022. Ecological benefits of trembling aspen retention in silvicultural brushing operations in British Columbia.
Chiara Chirico, BSc. Hons. (Undergraduate Thesis) 2022. Interactions among understory forest vegetation layers along a harvesting disturbance gradient in boreal mixedwood forests.
Jennifer Kubos, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2021. The effects of riparian management on ecology of small streams in British Columbia.
Samantha Nuyens, BSc. (Undergraduate) 2021. Live free or grow hard: Is British Columbia’s free growing standard compatible with modern forest values and stewardship principles?
Marcel Schneider, BSc. (co-supervised, Undergraduate) 2019. Spatial and temporal variation of post-fire forest understory vegetation in the boreal forest.
Amanda MacDonald, BSc. (co-supervised, Undergraduate) 2017. Effects of pipeline corridors on vegetation in west-central Alberta: implications for woodland caribou and grizzly bear habitat.