Betts, Matthew
Position Type:
Faculty
Job Title:
Professor
Department:
Forest Ecosystems & Society
Office Location:
340 Peavy Forest Science Center (PFSC)
Phone Number:
Fax Number:
Advising:
Graduate Major Advisor
Website:
Education
B.A., 1992, Queen’s University
B.Sc., 1999, University of New Brunswick
M.S., 1995, University of Waterloo
Ph.D., 2005, University of New Brunswick
Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2006, Dartmouth College
Research Areas
Integrated Social and Ecological Systems
Forest, Wildlife and Landscape Ecology
Research Interests
- Landscape Ecology
- Wildlife Ecology
(1) Influences of landscape structure on demography of animal populations, (2) Animal movement (particularly dispersal), (3) Population viability modeling, (4) Ecological thresholds, (5) Trophic cascades in forest ecosystems, (6) Species distribution modeling, (7) Socio-political mechanisms to affect sustainable forestry (8) Measuring landscape change.
Graduate Students:
Courses Taught:
- Landscape Ecology
- Ecosystem Informatics
- Forest Management and Biodiversity Conservation
Selected Publications:
- Stokely, T.D., Kormann, U.G., Verschuyl, J., Kroll, A.J., Frey, D.W., Harris, S.H., Mainwaring, D., Maguire, D., Hatten, J.A., Rivers, J.W., Fitzgerald, S. and Betts, M.G. 2021. Experimental evaluation of herbicide use on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and timber production tradeoffs in forest plantations. Journal of Applied Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13936
- Betts, M.G., Wolf, C. et al. (& 37 co-authors). 2019. Extinction filters mediate the global effects of habitat fragmentation on animals. Science 366(6470):1236-1239
- Betts, M.G., Wolf, C., Ripple, W., Phalan, B., Butchart, S. and Levi, T. 2017. Forest loss disproportionately erodes biodiversity in intact landscapes. Nature 547, 441–444. doi:10.1038/nature23285
- Frey, S.J.K., Hadley, A.S., Johnson, S. L., Schulze, M., Jones, J. A. and Betts, M. G. 2016. Spatial models reveal the microclimatic buffering capacity of old-growth forests. Science Advances 2, e1501392.
- Kormann, U., Scherber, C., Tscharntke, T., Klein, N., Larbig, Valente, J.M., Hadley, A.S. and Betts, M.G. 2016. Corridors restore animal-mediated pollination in fragmented tropical forest landscapes. Proceedings of the Royal Society Ser. B. 283: 20152347.
- Betts, M.G., Hadley, A.S. and Kress, W.J. 2015. Pollinator recognition by a keystone tropical plant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 112:3433–3438. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1419522112
- Betts, M.G., Fahrig, L., Hadley, A.S., Halstead, K.E., Robinson, W.D. Bowman, J., Wiens, J.A., and Lindenmayer, D.B. 2014. A species-centered approach for uncovering generalities in organism responses to habitat loss and fragmentation. Ecography 37(6):517-527.
- Hadley, A.S. and Betts, M.G. 2012. The effects of landscape fragmentation on pollination dynamics: absence of evidence not evidence of absence. Biological Reviews 87(3): 526-544.
- Betts, M.G., Hadley, A.S., Rodenhouse, N.L. and Nocera, J.J. 2008. Social information trumps vegetation structure in breeding site selection by a migrant songbird. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London-Ser. B. 275: 2257-2263
- Betts, M.G., Forbes, G.J. and Diamond, A.W. 2007. Thresholds in songbird occurrence in relation to landscape structure. Conservation Biology 21: 1046-1058.
For a full list of publications, visit: