Ethan Butler
Researcher, Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, USA
Ethan Butler is a researcher in the Department of Forest Resources and an Affiliate Member of the Natural Resources Science and Management Graduate Program. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2015 from the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His dissertation research developed statistical models to relate maize yield and temperature within the United States to study how the crop has been adapted to varying climates across the country and whether farmers have adjusted to historical climate change. He found evidence of local adaptations that could reduce yield losses in a hotter future. His current research is focused on improving the carbon cycle in global scale land surface models with an emphasis on increasing functional diversity. This research uses both advanced statistical modelling methods to create global scale maps of biodiversity and improves process based eco-physiology algorithms to bring them into closer alignment with cutting edge field research. Throughout his research he has focused on scaling critical details from fine scale measurements up to large spatial scales.
