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Scientists & Staff

Ecology/Earth Sciences

Yude Pan

Research Scientist
Climate, Fire, and Carbon Cycle Sciences
271 Mast Rd
Durham, NH, 03824
Phone: 603-868-7612

Contact Yude Pan


Current Research

Dr. Pan is currently a senior research scientist with the Climate, Fire, and Carbon Cycle Sciences group of the Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, and Senior Investigator of Harvard Forest, Harvard University. She is a member of the U.S. Government's Carbon Cycle Science Steering Group, member of the Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) on Biodiversity, Forest Management and REDD+, CPF of the United Nations, member of the Editorial Boards of the ESA journals, Ecosphere and Ecological Applications, as well as Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences. Her research projects primarily include, but are not limited to,

  1. Biological responses of terrestrial ecosystems to multiple environmental stresses with emphasis on understanding complex interactions among biotic and abiotic processes and between ecosystem structural and functional dynamics;
  2. Regional and continental terrestrial carbon dynamics, and the magnitude and causes of carbon sinks/sources on the land, analyzing the relative importance of the factors that regulate terrestrial uptake of C including natural disturbances, LULC, climate variability, increasing CO2 concentration, N deposition, and tropospheric ozone.
  3. The global forest carbon budget and the role of forests in the global carbon cycle, including assessment of forest carbon management strategies for mitigation, and the UN REDD+ Program.
  4. Modeling and forecasting complex effects of land use, climate and air pollution, particularly nitrogen deposition, on the health of forested watersheds and the effects of watershed forests on the micro-scale stream environments and aquatic organisms.


Her research is highly interdisciplinary in nature and has integrated intensive field studies with modeling approaches, combining strengths of both process- and statistical-based methods with hierarchic observations and measurements from forest inventories, eddy flux towers and remote sensing to understanding how ecosystems function across multiple scales. She has been involved in a series of collaborative projects for understanding and quantifying the impacts of climate changes on forest ecosystems and watershed health in Northeastern and the Mid-Atlantic regions, and for North America. She has also worked on the global forest C analyses with colleagues from around the world. She has been a PI and Co-PI of several NASA projects and USFS Climate Change Research Grants.

Education

  • SUNY-ESF and Syracuse University, Ph.D. Plant Ecology, 1993
  • Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, M.Sc. Quantitative Plant Ecology, 1985
  • Oceanography University of China, B.S. Applied Mathematics, 1983

Professional Experience

  • Associate Faculty, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Earth Environmental Science 2005 - 2016
  • Visiting Research Scholar, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University 2007 - 2008
  • Postdoc and Research Associate, Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 1994 - 1997

Professional Organizations

  • American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • Global Forest Expert Panel on Biodiversity, Forest Management and Redd++, Cpf, United Nations (2012 - 2014)
  • Ecological Society of America
  • Carbon Cycle Scientific Steering Group (CCSSG), United States Carbon Cycle Science Program
  • Harvard Forest, Harvard University
  • Colegio De Postgraduados, Mexico
  • American Geophysical Union
  • University of Pennsylvania, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (2005 - 2016)

Awards & Recognition

  • Elected Fellow of the Ecological Society of America for career contributions to science of Ecology., 2020
  • Chief's Distinguished Science Award, USDA Forest Service, Washington D.C, 2016
  • Charles Bullard Fellowship, Harvard Forest, Harvard University , 2016
  • Director's Distinguished Science Award, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, 2015
  • Awards of Merit for Leading the publication of the US Agricultural Department, USDA, 2011
  • International Forestry Award, USDA Forest Service, 2002

Featured Publications & Products

Publications & Products

Research Datasets

  • Pan, Yude; Birdsey, Richard; McCullough, Kevin; Bernier, Pierre Y.; Beaudoin, Andrè; Villemaire, Philippe; Guindon, Luc. 2015. Forest stand age map of Canada (2011) and the United States (2006 & 2011). Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0043.
  • Pan, Yude; Chen, Jing; Birdsey, Richard; McCullough, Kevin; He, Liming; Deng, Feng. 2014. Forest stand age map of Canada (2004) and the United States (2006). Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2014-0025.

National Research Highlights

Bing Xu and the student field crew from Penn re-measured tree and soil attributes in the intensive study plots. Yude Pan, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

Decadal Change of Forest Biomass Carbon Stocks and Tree Demography

Year: 2016

Forests in the Delaware River Basin could continue to be a carbon sink in the coming decades at the current middle successional stage, but would also likely experience remarkable composition and structure changes. Research results show the major effects of species-specific disturbances, such as non-native insects and harvest, on forest dynamics and highlights the importance for forest managers to anticipate these effects in their management plans.

Contributions of elevated CO2 concentration, N deposition, climate variability, and regrowth + disturbances to regional accumulated net biome productivity (NBP). Forest Service

Effects of Disturbance, Climate, and Management on U.S. Forest Carbon

Year: 2012

Forest response to fire, insects, harvesting, etc., is responsible for nearly one-half of the U.S. forest carbon sink, offsetting about 12 percent of U.S. fossil fuel emissions

Forest interior in a permanent plot in Amazonian Peru; note the buttressed tree being measured at 5m with the help of a ladder. Abel Monteagudo-Mendoza, University of Leeds, UK

Global Forests Sequester One-third of Annual Fossil Fuel Emissions, Much More Than Previously Thought

Year: 2011

Forested land plays a much larger role in removing carbon from the atmosphere than was previously thought, according to Forest Service scientists working with an international team of scientists. One of the key findings in the study is that global forests have annually removed 2.4 billion tons of carbon (8.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere, about one-third of annual fossil fuel emissions for the period of 1990-2007.

Last modified: Monday, January 31, 2022