Kevin Potter
Bio
I work to preserve natural ecosystems, and the services they provide, in a rapidly changing world.
I aim to advance knowledge about the integrity of forests and tree species, and to inform management and decision-making for these important resources.
Specifically, my research leverages the disciplines of landscape ecology, conservation biology and statistics to assess and mitigate threats to tree species and forest communities, particularly across broad scales. My research focuses on developing and applying innovative qualitative methods and models to address broad-scale, complex threats to forest health, with an emphasis on delivering tools that can enable better-informed management of forests and the tree species that constitute them.
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF INTERESTS:
I have expertise in broad-scale assessments of environmental data, and would be interested in helping others in their projects. In particular, I work a great deal with the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data, a national systematic network of approximately 140,000 forest plots on which a long list of forest and tree attributes are measured.
https://kevinpotter.wordpress.ncsu.edu/
Publications
- Coastal carbon sentinels: A decade of forest change along the eastern shore of the US signals complex climate change dynamics , PLOS CLIMATE (2025)
- Generalist Pests Cause High Tree Infestation, but Specialist Pests Cause High Mortality , Forests (2025)
- Do Experimental Forests and Ranges of the Southeastern United States Represent the Climate, Ecosystem Structure, and Ecosystem Functions of the Region? , Journal of Forestry (2024)
- Forest plant invasions in the eastern United States: evidence of invasion debt in the wildland-urban interface , Landscape Ecology (2024)
- Indicator 3.1 , (2024)
- Range-Wide Assessment of Recent Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) Area and Regeneration Trends , Forests (2024)
- Broad-scale patterns of forest fire occurrence across the United States and the Caribbean territories, 2021 , (2023)
- Broad-scale patterns of insect and disease activity across the United States from the National Insect and Disease Survey, 2021 , (2023)
- Denser forests across the USA experience more damage from insects and pathogens , SCIENTIFIC REPORTS (2023)
- How invaded are Hawaiian forests? Non-native understory tree dominance signals potential canopy replacement , LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY (2023)