Department of Environmental Conservation

Email: cmarks ’at’ tnc.org

Links: The Nature Conservancy 
Connecticut River Program 

Primary Interests:

Dr. Marks’s area of research is forest ecology and conservation. Current research focuses on the floodplain forests of the Connecticut River.

Current Projects:

• Quantifying critical thresholds in the physical processes such as flooding and sediment movement that govern floodplain forest ecology. This knowledge is being applied by The Nature Conservancy to restore and protect floodplain forests in the Connecticut River basin.
•  Restoring American elm to its former ecological role as a canopy dominant in Connecticut River floodplain forests with a population of trees that are highly tolerant of Dutch-elm-disease.

Selected Publications:

Marks C. O., Muller-Landau H. C., Tilman D (2016) Tree diversity, tree height and environmental harshness in eastern and western North America. Ecology Letters 19: 743-751.

Van Driesche, R. G., Simberloff, D., Wagner, D., Hoddle, M., Blossey, B., Heinz, K., Marks, C. O. (editors) (2016) Integrating Biological Control into Conservation Practice. Wiley; New York, USA

Marks, C. O. and Van Driesche, R. G. (2016) Designing restoration programs based on understanding the drivers of ecological change. In Integrating Biological Control into Conservation Practice. Editors Van Driesche, R. G., Simberloff, D., Wagner, D., Hoddle, M., Blossey, B., Heinz, K., Marks, C. O. Wiley; New York, USA

Marks, C. O. and Canham, C. D. (2015) A quantitative framework for demographic trends in size-structured populations: Analysis of threats to floodplain forests. Ecosphere 6: art232

Julian D. W., Hickey J. T., Fields W. L., Ostadrahimi L., Maher K. M., Barker T. G., Hatfield C. L., Lutz K., Marks C. O., Sandoval-Solis S. (2015) Decision Support System for Water and Environmental Resources in the Connecticut River Basin. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 04015038.

Marks, C. O., Nislow, K.H., Magilligan, F. J. (2014) Quantifying flooding regime in floodplain forests to guide river restoration. Elementa 2: 000031

Nislow, K. H., Marks C. O., et al. (2010). Aquatic Conservation Planning at a Landscape Scale. In Landscape-scale Conservation Planning. Editors S. C. Trombulak and R. F. Baldwin, Springer; Netherlands: 99-119.

Wright, S.J., Kitajima, K., Bunker, D., Condit, R., Dalling, J., Davies, S., Díaz, S., Engelbrecht, B.M.J., Harms, K.E., Hubbell, S.P., Kraft, N., Marks, C.O., et al. (2010). “Functional traits and the growth–mortality trade-off in tropical trees.” Ecology 91: 3664-3674.

Marks, C.O., and Muller-Landau, H.C. (2007). Comment on “From Plant Traits to Plant Communities: A Statistical Mechanistic Approach to Biodiversity”. Science 316: 1425c

Marks, C.O. (2007). The causes of variation in tree seedling traits: the roles of environmental selection versus chance. Evolution 61: 455-469

Marks, C.O., and Lechowicz, M.J. (2007). The ecological and functional correlates of nocturnal transpiration. Tree Physiology 27: 577-584

Marks, C.O., and Lechowicz, M.J. (2006). Alternative functional designs and the evolution of diversity. The American Naturalist. 167: 55-66

Marks, C.O., and Lechowicz, M.J. (2006). A holistic tree seedling model for the investigation of functional trait diversity. Ecological Modelling 193: 141-181

Muller-Landau, H., Condit, R. S., Harms, K.E., Marks, C.O., et al. (2006). Comparing tropical forest tree size distributions with the predictions of metabolic ecology and equilibrium models. Ecology Letters 9:589-602