Profile

Roger del Moral
Professor
moral@uw.edu
Box: 355325
Office: 206-543-6341

Web Site

Bio:
Roger studied at the University of California (Ph. D. 1968) and has been at the UW ever since. His graduate work involved detailed studies of allelopathy, studies that he continued in Washington and in Australia. He had conducted pioneering vegetation ecology studies in forests, marshes, and subalpine meadows before the eruption of Mount St. Helens compelled him to undertake research that has dominated his career. This research has taken him to Australia, England, Japan, Russia, Iceland, and Sicily. He has published over 100 papers and has collaborated with colleagues from Russia, Japan, China, India, The Netherlands, Norway, Iceland and Italy, as well as from Australia, Canada, and the U.S. His work continues to be funded by the National Science Foundation, most recently with a 5-year LTREB grant (2006-2010). The Mount St. Helens permanent plot study is now the longest continuous study of primary succession in the world and has provided many valuable insights for restoration.

Research Interests:

Roger studies how vegetation recovers from major disturbances. Since 1980, he has developed one of the most comprehensive programs to study primary succession, focused on Mount St. Helens. He has studied primary succession on volcanoes throughout the world, as well as other forms of succession on dunes and glacial forelands. These studies led to the publication of "Primary Succession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation" with L. R. Walker. They have demonstrated the importance of stochastic factors and landscape effects on the course of succession and have important implications for restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Selected Publications:

del Moral, R. J. E. Sandler and C. P. Muerdter. 2008. Spatial Factors Affect Primary Succession on the Muddy River Lahar, Mount St. Helens, Washington. Plant Ecology In press.

del Moral, R. and L. R. Walker. 2007. Environmental Disasters, Natural Recovery, and Human Responses. Cambridge University Press.

del Moral, R. 2007. Vegetation dynamics in space and time: an example from Mount St. Helens. Journal of Vegetation Science (Invited paper). 18: 479-488.

Walker, L. R., J. Walker and R. del Moral. 2007. Forging a New Alliance between Succession and Restoration. Ch 1 in L. R. Walker, J. Walker & R. H. Hobbs, Linking Restoration and Succession in Theory and in Practice. New York: Springer.

del Moral, R. L. R. Walker and J. P. Bakker. 2007. Insights gained from succession for the restoration of structure and function. Ch 2 in L. R. Walker, J. Walker & R. H. Hobbs, Linking Restoration and Succession in Theory and in Practice. New York: Springer.

Carey, S., A, Ostling, J. Harte, & R. del Moral. 2007. Impact of curve construction and community dynamics on the species-time relationship. Ecology 88: 2145-2153.

del Moral, R. and Iara L. Lacher. 2005. Vegetation Patterns 25 Years after the Eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington. American Journal of Botany 92: 1948-1956)

del Moral, R. and Lara R. Rozzell. 2005. Long-term effects of Lupinus lepidus on vegetation dynamics at Mount St Helens. Plant Ecology 181: 203-215.

del Moral, R. and Andrew J. Eckert. 2005. Colonization of volcanic deserts from productive patches. American Journal of Botany 92: 27-36.

Jones, Chad C. and R. del Moral. 2005. Effects of microsite conditions on seedling establishment on the foreland of Coleman Glacier, Washington. Journal of Vegetation Science 16: 293-300.

del Moral, R., D. M. Wood, J. H. Titus. 2005. Proximity, microsites, and biotic interactions during early succession. In: Mount St. Helens 20 years after recovery (V. H. Dale, F. Swanson and C. Crisafulli, eds.). Springer-Verlag, pp. 93-110.

del Moral, R. and Erin E. Ellis. 2004. Gradients in heterogeneity and structure on lahars, Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA. Plant Ecology 175: 273-286.

del Moral, R. 2004. How Lupinus lepidus affects primary succession on Mount St. Helens. In: E. van Santen (ed.), Wild and Cultivated Lupins from the Tropics to the Poles. Proc. 10th International Lupin Conference, Laugarvatn, Iceland, 19-24 June, 2002. Int. Lupin Association, Canterbury, New Zealand, pp. 208-215.

Davis, Mark, Jan Pergl, Anne-Marie Truscot, Jan Bakker, Karel Prach, Anne-Helene Prieur-Richard, Roos Veeneklaas, Petr Pysek, R. del Moral, Richard Hobbs, Scott Collins, and S. T. A. Pickett. 2004. Vegetation change: a reunifying concept in plant ecology. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Systematics and Evolution 7: 69-76.

Riege, D. and R. del Moral. 2004. Arrested succession in old fields within a temperate rainforest. American Midland Naturalist 151: 251-264.

Walker, L. R. and R. del Moral. 2003 Primary succession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

del Moral, R and C. C. Jones. 2002. Early spatial development of vegetation on pumice at Mount St. Helens. Plant Ecology. 162: 9-22.

Odland, A. and R. del Moral. 2002. Primary succession on newly revealed lake shores. Plant Ecology. 162: 185-198.

del Moral, R. 2000. Succession and species turnover on Mount St. Helens, Washington. Acta Phytogeographica Suecica 85: 53-62.

del Moral, R. 1999. Predictability of primary successional wetlands on pumice, Mount St. Helens. Madroño 46: 177-186.

del Moral, R. 1999. Plant succession on pumice at Mount St. Helens. American Midland Naturalist 141: 101-114.

del Moral, R. and S. Yu. Grishin. 1999. The consequences of volcanic eruptions. In L. R. Walker (ed.), Ecosystems of Disturbed Ground, Chapter 5; Ecosystems of the World Series (D. W. Goodall (Editor-in-Chief), Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.

Titus, J. H., P. J. Titus, and R. del Moral. 1999. Wetland development in primary and secondary successional substrates fourteen years after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA. Northwest Science 73: 186-204.

del Moral, R. 1998. Early succession on lahars spawned by Mount St. Helens. American Journal of Botany 85: 820-828.

Titus, J. H. and R. del Moral. 1998. Seedling establishment in different microsites on Mount St. Helens, Washington, USA. Plant Ecology 134: 13-26.

Titus, J. H. and R. del Moral. 1998. The role of mycorrhizae in primary succession on Mount St. Helens. American Journal of Botany 85: 370-375.

Teaching Interests:
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