Malcolm Hunter, Ph.D.

Research

Project Details

Maintaining Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems

Hunter received his Pew Fellowship with Dr. Robert (Bob) Seymour as a collaborative team. Their project developed and promoted methods for maintaining biodiversity in forest ecosystems, specifically strategies to encourage landowners (especially private forest owners) to make their land management practices more consistent with conservation of biodiversity. Their efforts resulted in a book entitled Maintaining Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems. This edited volume contains chapters written by 32 experts in forest ecology from 11 countries including 1991 Pew Fellow Connie Millar.

Hunter and Seymour used their research and writing to support sound conservation management by participating in regional policy initiatives on sustainable forest management including the Maine Forest Biodiversity Project and a sustainable forestry round table in New Hampshire. These projects provide a forum for members of the region's forest industry, environmental community, academics and state agencies to help formulate voluntary and regulatory policies for implementing sustainable forest practices.

Biography

Malcolm (Mac) Hunter's research experience covers a variety of ecosystems and organisms including birds, amphibians, insects, vascular plants, mammals, reptiles, lakes, peatlands, grasslands and more. However, his major focus is on forest ecosystems and the maintenance of their biological diversity. He directs a nine-person team conducting a long-term study of an oak-pine forest in Maine, which has been in progress more than 15 years. This initiative emphasizes the interactions among vascular plants, birds and small mammals and their changes through time. Hunter also works with forest ecosystems at a landscape scale studying the effects of forest management of amphibians, birds and insects and the implications of natural disturbance regimes, spatial distribution patterns and other large-scale phenomena for forest management and reserve design.

His interests are geographically broad also. Hunter has worked in 23 countries, mainly in Africa and the Himalayas. As a researcher and advisor, he interacts with a broad spectrum of organizations at the state, regional, national and international levels.

CV

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Oxford University
1978: Zoology, England, United Kingdom

Bachelor of Science, University of Maine
1974: Wildlife Science, Maine, USA

KEY LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

Conservation Biology
Editorial Board

President's Commission on Environmental Quality, Biodiversity Task Force
Member

Maine Bureau of Public Lands
Silviculture Advisory Committee

Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Nongame Advisory Council
Member

Maine State Planning Office, Ecological Reserves Steering Committee
Member

Society for Conservation Biology
Past President

World Wildlife Fund, USAID, and Smithsonian Institution, Nepal Conservation Research and Training Center project
Advisor

World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Species Survival Committee
Member

KEY AWARDS & HONORS

Marine Fellow
1995: Pew Fellows Program in Conservation and the Environment

Rhodes Scholarship

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

• Hunter, M.L. and R.S. Seymour. 2000. Practicing Ecological Forestry: Sustaining Biological Diversity and Wood Production in the Northeast. Island Press, Washington, DC
• Dibble, A.C., J.C. Brissette and M.L. Hunter Jr. 1999. Putting community data to work: Some understory plants indicate red spruce regeneration habitat. Forest Ecology and Management 114(2): 275
• Hunter, M.L. and R.S. Seymour. 1999. Maintaining biodiversity in forest ecosystems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. (695 pp)
• Hunter, M.L., A. Calhoun and M. McCollough (eds.) (eds.). 1999. Maine amphibians and reptiles. University of Maine Press, Orono, Maine. (256 pp)
• Boone, R. B. and M.L. Hunter Jr.. 1996. Using diffusion models to simulate the effects of land use on grizzly bear dispersal in the Rocky Mountains. Landscape Ecology 11(1): 51
• Hunter, M.L. and Seymour, R.S.. 1994. New Forestry in Eastern Spruce-Fir Forests: Principles and Applications to Maine. University of Maine, Orono. (36 pp)
• Hunter, M.L. 1993. Natural disturbance regimes as spatial models for managing boreal forests. Biological Conservation 65:115-120
• Hunter, M.L. and T. 1993. Avian nest predation in clearcuts, forests and edges in a forested landscape. Journal of Wildlife Management 57:358-364
• Hunter, M.L., J.Gibbs and S. Melvin. 1993. Snag availability and communities of cavity nesting birds in tropical versus temperate forests. Biotropica 25:236-241
• Hunter, M.L., P. Vickery and J. Wells. 1992. Is density an indicator of breeding success? Auk 109:706-710
• Hunter, M.L., P. Vickery and J. Wells. 1992. Use of a new reproductive index to test the relationship between habitat quality and breeding success. Auk 109:697-705