Sherri Johnson Oral History Interview, November 10, 2020

SARA KHATIB: My name is Sara Khatib and this research is for my master's thesis. The research involves history of different traditions of science at the Andrews Forest and the philosophical perceptions of nature that underlie these different traditions. I would like to ask you a few open-ended questions regarding these topics. I expect the duration of the interview to take up to one hour to complete but maybe up to two hours, depending on your interest and knowledge. Would you like to participate in this interview?

SHERRI LYNN JOHNSON: Yes, I would.

SK: We can end the interview at any point you wish to do so. Please inform me right away if you no longer want to participate and the interview will immediately end. Do I have permission to record this interview?

SLJ: Yes.

SK: Okay. Before we begin, I want to offer a brief summary as to why we are here today. As you know, there is currently a collection of oral histories in the Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center titled, 00:01:00"Voices of the Forest, Voices of the Mills." That collection consists of stories on people's backgrounds and how their journeys have led them to the Andrews Forest. It also consists of stories that illustrate certain political and cultural transitions, such as the transition away from the timber era to the conservation era and the planning for the Pacific Northwest Forest Plan and discusses the overall culture of LTER [Long-Term Ecological Research]. Today we are here to build from that by asking more direct questions about your personal philosophy and practice of science and then scale up to the philosophy and practice of science on the community level. This interview will inform the writing of my master's thesis, where my research questions ask 1) what are the different traditions of science that characterize the Andrews community and 2) what are the philosophies of nature that underlie these different traditions? We are here today with Dr. Sherri Johnson who joined the Andrews Forest community in 1996 as a post-doc after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Missoula. Since then, she's become a forest scientist [SLJ interrupts].

SLJ: The University of Oklahoma.

SK: Oh, Oklahoma. Thank you for the clarification. Since then, she's been a forest scientist with lead responsibility for Andrews Forest and the LTER community on the whole. Her research involves landscape influences on streams and in 2018, Dr. Johnson received the USFS Inspiring Woman Award. I'm glad to have you here today. Are you ready to begin?

SLJ: Yep. Just to clarify, I was a post-doc. I was officially hired by the Forest Service not until 2001.

SK: Okay, gotcha. Sounds good. Thank you. The first set of questions inquire about your perception of an ecosystem and your personal philosophy and take on scientific research as well as the way you perceive nature may influence your scientific approach. The first question I want to begin with is how would you define an ecosystem?

SLJ: Yeah, that's an interesting question to have to step back and go-because we 00:03:00use the term. It's very popular. In Frank Golley's-retrospective it's apparent that these ideas cycle in about 30-year cycles and so he wrote his book in the early '90s, so we're coming back now 30 years later, whether it's generational or whatever. Everything gets attributed to ecosystems these days. When I went back to think about looking at these, it really is just ecology: interaction between organisms and their environment, but in a systematic way is what many of the definitions. So, I had to go look it up again to see exactly how I use it versus. I think it involves much more processes in a systematic way. Sometimes ecology can just be interactions and focus more on the species, where ecosystems to me involve some of the processes including biology, chemical, climatic, and 00:04:00hydrologic - much more than straight ecology might.

SK: Okay.

SLJ: It's almost like community ecology. I come from the hierarchy: populations, ecosystems-or, communities, ecosystems and so they're all being pulled. Because ecology can just even be at a population level.

SK: Would you say ecosystems emphasize more of the abiotic components as well and their interactions with the biotic?

SLJ: Well, I take more as a systematic, which suggests processes. There may be processes in the ecology, but I tend to think of it also as generally at a larger spatial scale.

SK: Okay.

SLJ: But more than just one or two species, or even just one community. It's 00:05:00multiple communities, multiple processes.

SK: How would you describe the nature of an ecosystem? Is it static? Is it dynamic? Orderly? Chaotic?

SLJ: I come from a disturbance background, so I think of very little as being static. Brittle versus fragile is an interesting idea, but I tend to think of resilient versus fragile or resilient versus resistant is probably a little bit more. That so depends on-it's very site-dependent. I can think of systems that are very fragile or not resilient and systems that are very resilient and whether or not they are native or anthropogenic systems. I don't think it's just-I don't think we can characterize the nature of an ecosystem. I think it 00:06:00has to be ecosystem specific.

SK: Interesting. Okay. So, particular to a specific ecosystem, do you have any examples or hypotheticals to demonstrate what you would perceive as a more resilient?

SLJ: I think of the Andrews with its large, old growth as fairly resilient. We have a lot of biomass. There are big trees that are long-lived. It takes a lot-the ecosystem has a lot of inertia to continue kind of like it is because of the longevity I think of the species, because of the climate, because of the geology. It takes a lot to really move our ecosystem into a disturbed mode. Different ecosystems: young forests, plantations are very different. Agricultural systems are really different. They're already so modified, but then 00:07:00they can still be very resilient, because they're so modified and simplified, such as agricultural, the grass fields here in the valley or something. Or they can be unique still but, as forest ecosystems go, as I think of the difference, I've worked in some young plantations and more industrial lands and see quite a bit of difference between those systems and the Andrews system overall.

SK: Interesting. In terms of what about the plantations that replaced the old growth in the Pacific Northwest. Do you think they are less resilient or resilient in different ways due to their modification?

SLJ: I think they're often simplified. I study food webs quite a bit. In terms of food webs, I think the diversity is much lower. They can be very resilient because they're young trees and they're able to recover quickly, but they're 00:08:00also more prone to some kinds of disturbances, such as fire. Young stands burn more quickly and more often hotter than an old growth forest. There are some real differences and mostly it's just that it really is kind of like farming. I've gotten my head around that when I am working in these systems that, oh, yeah, we're farming trees here and the crop is a 40-year crop.

SK: It's the agricultural model.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: What about chaos versus orderly? Would you say that that's site-specific as well?

SLJ: I don't usually think of those terms.

SK: Okay. Not part of your repertoire of thinking.

SLJ: No. I think it's too viewer specific.

SK: Sure. Fair. What is your theoretical-philosophical background and how is 00:09:00that applied toward your science?

SLJ: That's a good question. I don't often muse about my philosophical background, but I do have one. It comes from the idea of respect for the systems and for the native systems and trying to understand how natural ecosystems function so that we can, as we modify ecosystems and landscapes, we can have them as functional as we can. I realize that places, not everywhere is going to be natural, but we do need certain kinds of processes to sustain healthy communities. It's kind of circular to say ecosystems sustain ecosystems, but it 00:10:00really is hard to get away from that language.

SK: Sure.

SLJ: The level of life-type ideas and in my science, I am much more of an experimentalist and an observationalist than a theoretical [person]-I probably tend more to the applied rather than the basic, and it may be that I came into science a little bit later that I find people who really think in theory are raised in science from very young. I had some other things I did before I became a scientist, and so I'm a little more practical, maybe, in how I approach it, or just more applied or interested in seeing how things play out and how things can be adapted to improve our forest management, our stream management.

SK: As someone who comes from a hydrology and biochemistry background, has that influenced your approach to science as well?

SLJ: Yeah, I've always focused on the water and I focus on understanding water, understanding the variability has always been what draws me. I'm not a bird person. I'm not a tree person. I'm a water person and I straddle the line of bio and eco, or hydro and eco for water and enjoy both sides of it.

SK: Do you think as a hydro-eco person that you have a different perspective on these systems than other people? How does your perspective compare say to a bird 00:12:00person or a tree person?

SLJ: Well, some of us sometimes talk about our different perspectives of landscapes and of processes and it seems like when you're working in a stream many people who work in streams have to understand a little bit more about the upland processes: soils and water movement through soils and water movement through trees, not in an extensive way, but at least to understand some of these because it influences what we study in the streams. I sometimes find people who work in areas that are higher in the catchment don't necessarily have to think about what surrounds them as much or that kind of spatial linkage like I do in a stream. Somebody who's working on a bug in the top of a tree probably has very 00:13:00little idea what's going on in the stream or what's making it to the stream or those kinds of questions aren't part of their key, core ideas. But in a stream, I'm thinking of the bugs that are falling out of the trees and detritus and algae that's growing in [the stream] and nutrients that are coming in. I think we have a different connectivity to our watersheds and all the processes in those watersheds by being at the bottom of the watershed.

SK: Would you say that it almost forces an integrative mindset?

SLJ: I think it is more than I expected when I got into it. I think I've learned a lot more about all these other systems to better help me understand my system.

SK: In the field of ecology and the Andrews Forest history in general, would you say that that's sort of a more recent development? I know that that's a big part 00:14:00of the Andrews Forest is the forest-stream interactions?

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: That was mostly very recent, right? In the field of ecology in general? Or would you say that those ideas stem from further back?

SLJ: For history of ecology, aquatic sides are much shorter. Going back to, you know, early study of lakes was where people mostly focused and then to move into streams has really only been since '50s and maybe the '60s. The Andrews was very prominent in those early stream studies, had a very rich cadre of researchers and ideas and energy. I've been really, I was really drawn to that and knew of the Andrews as a graduate student when I was working elsewhere.

In terms of recent, I guess it depends on how old you are whether you think of 00:15:00like some of the riparian work in the late '70s and early '80s as recent or old. It's a generation back at least, one generation at least of scientists, maybe two. Sometimes some of those ideas get lost. It's hard when new scientists come in for them to understand the history of the place, to want to go back and read the papers from the '70s or early '80s about what was happening. People have a tendency to redevelop, redesign, re-I'm trying to think of the word: rediscover things that are actually in the literature.

SK: Okay [laughs].

SLJ: That's across all science.

SK: Yeah, okay. That's just from a lack of going back and having a historical perspective, I suppose, on what it is that you're studying.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: That's interesting. Would you say that that's happening with stream-forest interaction research specifically, too?

SLJ: Yeah. I think it happens across all of them. It's kind of tied back to those ideas cycling. But I think it also, because the Andrews does have such a strong history from the IBP days and River Continuum days and early LTER that some of those ideas, so much was looked at then that it can almost be discouraging, that: did they figure out everything already? That's not the case, so.

SK: Right. I mean, with different perspectives or theories or philosophies, I guess you could take on a different approach. If we could focus for a minute longer on the stream-ecology interface, because I think that's very interesting, 00:17:00is I know that initially ecosystem ecology had somewhat of a static and bounded perception of ecosystems, right? But then you have dynamic ecology that's emerging and sort of understanding and your background with disturbances. How would you say that the stream-ecology interface, the perspective, and our understanding of that has changed philosophically over time over the course of your career?

SLJ: I think people were slower to work in streams than lakes because of the dynamic nature of streams with flooding and runoff, whereas lakes can be much more stable and can be easier to study. They're more of a closed system. The forest-stream interactions have been really, it's really a strong part of the Andrews history, as much or more than some of the other sites, because of that 00:18:00early work. Seeing it move forward, is that what you asked? How is it currently?

SK: How is our perspective on stream-ecology interactions changing through time? Yeah.

SLJ: Broadly, at the Andrews it really depends on who you think about. Some of us think much more about streams and landscapes because of the connectivity. Other people working at the Andrews are thinking much more about species interactions, so kind of going more towards that population side of processes. Some are thinking about food webs. Some are thinking about disturbance in food webs. It's really hard to work in a stream and not think about disturbances. There were some early papers in the late '80s that ask whether flooding is a 00:19:00disturbance in a stream, because if it's regular-the whole question of disturbance. Those were some very influential papers in my background of what is a disturbance and how do we define disturbances? Or is it just more variability in conditions. And landscapes and patches were also big topics that we haven't maybe fully developed at the Andrews as we might have. Even just the aquatic community at the Andrews, it really depends on who's present at the table when you're talking. There's no unified perspective. There's no Andrews perspective. There's lots of perspectives.

Maybe the thing we try and encourage the most to be kind of an Andrews perspective is a function of our long-term research and trying to help 00:20:00researchers be aware of the history of the site so that they can be informed as they ask their questions. With long-term research, that's what we're really supposed to be doing is building on our long-term data.

SK: In a sense, would you say that the stream-ecology interaction almost opened up a little bit of our thinking about the dynamics of systems?

SLJ: I think stream ecology has really pushed that into some of the landscape ecology that came up a little bit later, but included streams, but not quite as much. Included streams, but then started focusing on those disturbances. It's hard to focus on disturbances. It's messy and you kind of need to be able to 00:21:00view them from afar to be able to characterize them. As remote sensing has come along, as different ways of seeing our ecosystems it really makes a difference, and also different ways of measuring things in our ecosystems. As we've gone to more and more sensors and cheap sensors and precise sensors, we can increase the scale of which we're working. A lot of the early work was very patch, very reach-scale [focused], because that's all we could really handle. To do it at bigger and bigger scales and to think about the connectivity, the River Continuum work that was in part at the Andrews was really key in that paradigm of everything's connected.

SK: Along with this stream-ecology interaction, I know that Andrews Forest, and your work in particular, does emphasize and focus on disturbance. How do you think that science, or the philosophy and practice of it, has changed in response to trying to understand disturbances more? You talk about the sensors in increasing our ability technologically. But is there any other way these methods or theories that we've developed over time to be able to understand disturbances better?

SLJ: I think early on, when I was a seasonal Forest Service person back in the '70s, people had a very static view of forests and fairly static view of streams. This is how they're supposed to look. This is what they do. Old trees were big and decadent. The dynamic nature of streams, of forests, is coming into 00:23:00play more, even though in the '60s there were some papers about stream meandering and that kind of disturbance. We went through a really strong engineering phase where everything was riprapped in streams and channelized. Forests were supposed to be all one age and you throw out the old trees and you make them young and bigger. I think disturbance has really helped us recognize, and then play with, diversity, changes in diversity, and whether it be diversity of species or diversity of habitats. There's an intermediate disturbance hypothesis that I learned about in grad school. I harken back to that quite a bit as its influence on diversity of the site and the cyclic nature of what we see. Where are we on this gradient? I always had trouble with, for example, 00:24:00island biogeographic theory, the bio, because it assumed things were very static, very fixed. Was trying to make you kind of come back to laws, and it was trying to make laws based on a static view and didn't have much space for diversity and disturbance and some things-so it was always kind of hard for me to get that, or to want to generalize things down to a single member for an area or something, because I see the variety more.

SK: That has far[-reaching] implications, too, in terms of management in the environmental movement and challenges with the old growth, right?

SLJ: Right.

SK: In terms of seeing them as static or are they always in constant change.

SLJ: Right.

SK: You mentioned a little bit earlier about that you're combined experimental 00:25:00and observational approaches. Do you mind elaborating on that?

SLJ: Sure. My questions tend to come in the view of seeing something and wondering why, not thinking about some theoretical question and looking for a place that it might be happening. I see something and I'm curious about it and then I think about how to test it, which often falls to experiments because I'm a hands-on person. I've done construction and things, and so, oh, let's implement this. I've been part of some big experiments over the years where we added 15N, an isotope of nitrogen, 15N, ammonia and nitrate and watched how it 00:26:00went through stream and food webs, watched how it went through biology and chemical processes. Those kinds of experiments. I've tried to do some experiments with temperature and shading, even our watershed experiments, our watershed studies at the Andrews, our small watersheds that are gauged are really a relic of experiments that began in the '50s and '60s. A couple of them began in the '80s, where they harvested something and left [unharvested] something else as a reference. Those kinds of observational [approaches]. At what point does an experimental just become observational with our small watersheds now that we're 60 years out from when the treatment was done? It's still an experiment, but we're observing. I like that level of exploration in a stream.

SK: That's interesting, too, because I think that historically a lot of people have talked about observational versus experimental as if they're separate, but in actuality they might actually be fluid, right?

SLJ: Yeah. I mean you can't observe things without getting involved. It's usually we impact what we're observing, so you almost have to consider it an experiment.

SK: There's almost like whether you like it or not, as scientists, there's an engagement process and you're in the thing that you're studying.

SLJ: Sometimes it's not even intentional. We don't realize that we're impacting what we're observing. I worked in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Hugo. I was a grad student and we were working pretty regularly down there and the research footprint idea became really obvious, because all these people were down there 00:28:00studying this hurricane, the impacts of the hurricane and some recovery, but we had to be really careful that we weren't studying each other's impacts. It's the same way in a stream. If I go out and sample something and I'm observing what insects are in the stream, I may be disturbing something and so you have to be careful our sequence of things. We're worried about that a little bit right now at the Andrews with Watershed 1, one of the watersheds that burned. There's probably going to be a pulse of people wanting to get back in and revisit prior instruments, which is perfect. But we have to be pretty careful about sequencing that so that somebody whose working in the soils isn't impacting what the vegetation people are seeing, and that we're not in the stream, we're not seeing a signal of sediment because people are disturbing the hillslopes. I think it is 00:29:00harder to separate them, even if you're out studying birds, at some point you're going to affect the birds by being there.

SK: Their behavior.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: Good to be aware of that. You touched on this a little bit with the last question, but to ask a little bit more explicitly: what is your strategy in developing a research question?

SLJ: I don't know that I have a strategy. I'm probably a little more opportunistic. I see things. I get curious about them and kind of dive into that area. Sometimes that is influenced by circumstance of just happening to be there 00:30:00and seeing something. Sometimes it's because of a planned direction of so-and-so has a question, some managers have a question, some landowners have questions. What about this? That can be a stimulus. Then it's always that juggle with trying to find funding for projects, too. Some science is expensive and you need to figure out how to fund the research because we can't study everything. We don't have enough money, so how do we prioritize? As we prioritize, I realize some things I'm not interested in and others do that. Other things I'm more interested in and I'm willing to pursue those questions and those opportunities. 00:31:00My strategy is probably just perseverance, curiosity and perseverance. Curiosity gets you going and then perseverance to find the funding and make it happen.

SK: Would you say the question more so comes to you, it seems like what you're describing, rather than it being a theoretical predetermined thing that you go to find?

SLJ: I think it's probably some interactions of observing the landscape and observing a system and that curiosity of seeing something and then thinking on it and that iteration back and forth. It's not like somebody hands me a question and I'm willing to go work on it.

SK: What are your thoughts in regards to objectivity in scientific research?

SLJ: Yeah, it's something we have to be as explicit about as possible. It's hard. Everybody has a perspective and at what point is our perspective based on just our observations or on our interpretation of our observations? It's a big one, especially when I'm working on more policy-related issues and at what point are my, how do I keep my personal feelings about how a stream is being restored or a landscape is being managed away from the science questions? I think, as long as we're conscious about it, it'll help us not just slip into working to our preconceptions. The preconceptions can also just be about theory and keeping 00:33:00an open mind about "theory says this, but is that really what I'm seeing?" is important. Objectivity is crucial. It's nebulous but we need to keep testing ourselves on it. That's my perspective on it.

SK: To clarify your perspective, would you say being conscientious of one's preconceived notions could actually help in terms of achieving better objectivity?

SLJ: Yeah. Preconceived notions about any aspect of it: applied, basic, policy, theory.

SK: Next question-as a researcher, how do you use the scientific method to find truth?

SLJ: I don't know that I find truth. I get to results. I get to observations and analyses. I think, as part of the scientific method, as we talked about, the background is really important, foundational. Information about reading, even foundational studies that may disagree so that you realize there's a range out there and putting together the best studies you can to address those hypotheses and questions. Then moving on and thinking about analyses and not going into analyses with a preconceived idea of what's going to come out and trying various 00:35:00things to, different ways of looking at the data: analytically, graphically, and then helping put those findings back into a more holistic perspective. As I've gotten older and gotten more gray hair and things, everything is much more gray. When I first, years ago I did a project for Weyerhaeuser. It was like Weyerhaeuser and it was black and white and I was an environmental person, not even an ecologist yet, but over the years I realize, oh, there are many more perspectives here, shades of gray, gradients.

SK: Diversity of truths.

SLJ: Yeah. Well, and truth. I'm not sure I like the term truth because that assumes there's just one way and thus truth. Can there be truth if there are 00:36:00different ways that an organism is doing something - are all true? We tend to think it's only one. Where does truth fit into some of these processes and conflicting results? I don't have an answer, but some of my science, for example, is seeing something that generally is in the literature as truth that, if you open up the canopies and you get more nutrients, there'll be more algae. It's a very basic thing. Yet we studied it in the Coast Range in a very experimental way, and we didn't get the response of the algae. You know there's two truths: one is there's more response and one is there wasn't much response. 00:37:00I don't know. That's why I have trouble with the word truth, but I think there are results. I think there's probably, if I was smart enough, I could figure out when there's going to be a response and when there's not. I'm not sure I'm there yet. Everything I'm looking at doesn't quite, isn't clean-cut and so the messiness, I think, is hard to fit into a truth aspect.

SK: I suppose maybe then the idea of truth almost like assumes that nature's universal and homogenous across time and space.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: It assumes that about nature, which is, that itself may not be true.

SLJ: Yeah, or that's not what I see. I don't see homogenous. I see diverse. I see heterogenous. I see exceptions to the rules often.

SK: In relation to this last question, are there laws of nature? If so, can you define what a law of nature means?

SLJ: I saw that on your sheet. I thought the laws of nature? There are. Organisms need fuel to grow, is probably a law of nature. Gravity is a law. As an ecologist, I'm not really working in those realms very much. My partner is a mathematician with some physics background and I think he deals with laws and I deal with processes. He kind of will say, "Don't you know x, y, and z about your system?" It's like, no. We don't. Well, [imitates puzzled look]. I deal with uncertainties much more than laws.

SK: That's an interesting that you and your partner's work, the contrast of that I think is very characteristic of ecology and physics, or math, as whole 00:39:00disciplines. Uncertainties and events versus more universals.

SLJ: Right. Physics, I think the repeatability of their events is they have the probabilities down. We don't.

SK: Repeatability. Are there any other things would you say that you can see the difference that really highlights the contrast between the two?

SLJ: I think certainty and repeatability. When he talks about stuff, it's, "This happens and then this happens and there's this energy level given off or this formula goes through and you ... ." And, so, I think even over time he sees some of the uncertainties or different starting points can get to different answers, which I think helps explain our ecology that we have many different starting 00:40:00points. I don't think in those terms very often.

SK: Right. It's a different framework.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: What about cause and effect?

SLJ: Well, yeah, I mean, so much of what we look at is if this happens then this happens and then what happens? When a fire burns, fire people assume one thing and we're learning about the diversity of fire responses, or hydrologic responses. But it's not a fixed answer for most of what I study.

SK: You've touched on this a little bit, but what are your overall motivations for curiosity or for finding real-world solutions. You've said that you are 00:41:00situated a little bit more on the applied side of things?

SLJ: I came into science because I like water. I like understanding. There's a curiosity that got me into it, but there's also that I wanted to be able to make an impact in some way or work towards the betterment of systems. I thought about going into engineering. I didn't.

SK: It's way on the applied side, right?

SLJ: Yeah, and the types of questions they work on I thought it would get old pretty quick, most engineers. I did groundwater work for a while and cleaning up 00:42:00oil spills around gas stations. I didn't want to spend my time doing that.

SK: There's more of a learning and discovering element to where you are now, right?

SLJ: Yeah, and I like nature. I'm happy outside. Working in an urban situation isn't as attractive to me as working in-I think urban, I think urban without a whole lot of vegetation. There are nice urban gardens and parks and things that are pleasant. But the natural world is much more attractive to me for spending time, even though I spend a lot of time in front of a computer now.

SK: That concludes our first section. Would you like to take a 5-minute break?

SLJ: I would.

SK: Okay, sounds good. I can pause the recording and then we can meet back here 00:43:00in five minutes.

SLJ: Okay, sounds good.

SK: We've come to 45 minutes with the last section.

SLJ: Sounds good.

SK: Okay. These next set of questions are in regards to philosophy and practice on a community level at the Andrews Forest. I'll inquire about different traditions and approaches to science on a community level and what role these different approaches contribute to the Andrews science community as a whole. My first question is what role does natural history play in the Andrews Experimental Forest?

SLJ: I think it's a huge role because of the-it's just such a dramatic place to work. That feedback between it being a dramatic place to work and having good 00:44:00science and there's lots of pretty places in the world, but that combination has been really strong at the Andrews.

SK: Can you elaborate what you mean by dramatic?

SLJ: Steep forest landscapes, big trees, big rocks, interesting understory, interesting communities. The aquatic fish community is pretty simple, but the bugs are very diverse. Panoramic, I guess, I mean by dramatic. I did my dissertation in Oklahoma on some streams there that were really interesting but they weren't panoramic by any means.

SK: I know that in the field of ecology as a whole some people have expressed that natural history has been pushed to the backburner while more hypothesis-driven research has taken greater popularity. Would you say that that's true for the Andrews Forest? Or does natural history still play as much of an important role?

SLJ: You know, the hypothesis-driven aspects, I find it really, as I mentioned, person-specific. It's hard to-I was trying to think of ways to describe the diversity of opinions or the variety of opinions. I don't know if it's a gradient of hypothesis to observational, because we are all are working together. But some people's brains just go to hypothesis. Mine goes to questions 00:46:00that aren't quite as formal as hypotheses. When I think about the Andrews, I go back to a statement Mark Harmon, or one of the reviews we got on our LTER5 proposal, maybe? [LTER5 is the fifth increment of LTER grant funding] I think LTER5. Mark Harmon was the lead. One of the reviewers came back and said, "You're not phrasing your questions as hypotheses." Mark Harmon, kind of had a-have you met Mark?

SK: I've spoken to him via email, but not in person.

SLJ: Okay. He's kind of a big, gruff teddy bear. He ranted and ranted about hypothesis questions and how can you really do long-term questions with hypotheses and so he saw a real temporal dynamic in hypothesis-driven, and that it's kind of, what was the wording-superfluous? to just say we have this 00:47:00hypothesis because we may never get to the answer. We'll get to small answers, but if it's a big enough hypothesis for the long-term it's going to be almost unanswerable. You almost have to break it into smaller bits and bites. Hypothesis-driven happens at the Andrews and lots of other research happens, too.

SK: Do you think that NSF plays a role? Are they for one approach over another?

SLJ: Oh yeah. I think NSF proposals, especially non-LTER ones, are very hypothesis-formulated. People who are doing well in that or in thinking in those lines phrase things as hypotheses more for that purpose. You write to who, you 00:48:00write in a language that your funder is used to. LTER proposals have, I think we juggled one of the more recent LTER proposals about using hypothesis terminology or not, and are they really hypotheses? Maybe some of our short-term experiments or observations are going to be hypothesis-framed, but our bigger, longer-term questions are more questions. In terms of experiments, I think having hypotheses for experiments helps structure the design better because it makes it very clear and explicit. To go out and do an experiment if you don't have a strong "what if?" or expectations that are often framed as hypotheses you may not measure the 00:49:00right things. I see a real strong connection between hypotheses and experiments. Just help to contain, help define the experiment more.

SK: Right. Help structure it in a way that can also be repeatable as well.

SLJ: Right.

SK: Would you say that it's a combination that characterize the Andrews Forest, that have contributed to the Andrews Forest?

SLJ: Yeah. We really talk about the long-term studies and observations and then the short-term and experiments that go on. Short-term studies aren't always experiments. Some can be observational.

SK: They all interweave with one another to create this long-term story, though, right?

SLJ: Right. Ideally, yes.

SK: Yes. That's the goal.

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: Short-term is combination, it can be experimental, observational, but would you say long-term is primarily observational?

SLJ: Well, we have the long-term watershed experiments that are 60 years, 70 years now. We have log decomp. Those are probably two of the main experiments that we're still studying. You can think about some of the prior harvests that aren't part of small watersheds as experiments, but we're not-we're studying them. There's new gaps getting created. I think it's a mix.

SK: It's a mixed bag, yeah. What role does ecosystem modeling have in the Andrews Experimental Forest?

SLJ: Yeah, we've-partly because of who's present and who's at the table and who 00:51:00is currently working there, we've had some history of very strong ecosystem modeling with some of our early researchers: Dick Waring and his students. We've done some modeling around stream nitrogen dynamics as part of that big cross-site study, Lotic Intersite Nitrogen Experiment, what I called LINX, and we had lots of people doing hydrologic modeling using our long-term data. We are probably a little short of ecosystem modeling at this point with our current group and who's currently being funded and what their skills are. It comes and goes in importance in NSF and LTER. We often end up sharing ecosystem modelers 00:52:00across LTER sites because once somebody has a good model-for example there was a graduate student who was working at Hubbard Brook and Niwot Ridge and started using some of our Andrews data using the same model in different circumstances. Helping him refine his model for the Andrews was a recent thing. But he wasn't really, it didn't come out of our group as much. It came out of some other efforts.

SK: Through your time working at Andrews Forest what would you say are some advantages and limitations to modeling, or challenges or contributions?

SLJ: I think it really can help us ask questions. Even if the questions aren't 00:53:00totally accurate, it helps us understand the processes. For example, this recent Ph.D. student's paper about climate change and old growth and by putting everything he could into his model, it came out with some surprising findings. Some of it makes me think about how well we're parametrizing our system and how well you can model that kind of dynamic. There's strengths and weaknesses on both sides. Ecosystem modeling may be more the numeric side of it and tying it back to the field-based isn't always-the people who go into ecosystem modeling aren't often the field people. We just really haven't pulled as many in as we 00:54:00might have, partly maybe they're not focusing on the Andrews as much. It's a complex system. It's easier to model other places. But I think it's valuable. Any kind of hypothesis modeling, hypothesis generation, it's a different way to run experiments is almost how I think of it. We do have some aquatic-one scientist is doing some aquatic modeling for fish. That's much more kind of an individual-when we say ecosystem modeling, there's all different kinds of modeling, just like there's all different levels of organization of ecology.

SK: That's on a different scale, essentially.

SLJ: I would think some of the modeling that's happening more commonly is maybe 00:55:00more on the population level.

SK: At the Andrews Forest?

SLJ: Yeah. And maybe some communities, but not quite as much ecosystem.

SK: Gotcha. Would you say that at the Andrews Forest it's more bottom-top research?

SLJ: Yeah. I think we're a very dispersed group compared to some of the other LTERs that are much more hierarchical and more narrowly focused. I think it's partly a function of our structure and our trying to be inclusive tends to make us more dispersed.

SK: There's probably some strength to that as well as weakness.

SLJ: Yeah. There's trade-offs either way.

SK: Right. That also would explain the interdisciplinary character of the 00:56:00research as well.

SLJ: Right. To be interdisciplinary, my major advisor used to say, you need to be really strong in something and if you're totally interdisciplinary you're going to be a mile wide and an inch deep. That's always that push-pull of interdisciplinary versus much more focused.

SK: With the Andrews Forest's very strong interdisciplinary nature how do you think that's characterized the philosophy of science or the way that people think about forest ecosystems?

SLJ: I think it's helped integrate by getting the people coming from different backgrounds thinking about the same thing. I think some of maybe our more current research in the last couple of years is much more, is maybe less integrated, much more individual project based. As the pendulum swings back and 00:57:00forth between integration versus just individual we're probably more on the side of separate projects these days as opposed to integrated-it's hard to integrate with a great, big group. Our group is pretty big right now. I think it's easier to integrate, you know, there's probably some optimal sizes of integration and disciplines. That's about it. I didn't know. We work to integrate more and to have projects and people learning about each other. We don't have quite as many mechanisms of it as we used to.

SK: Do you think disciplinary traditions play a role when people are specialized?

SLJ: Yeah.

SK: We talked about natural history, observational modeling and hypothesis-driven experimental. Are there other approaches to ecological research that you think aren't covered by these terms or that fall in-between the lines?

SLJ: There probably are but I can't think of any.

SK: I have a couple of concluding questions.

SLJ: Okay.

SK: To wrap up here. The next one would be what significant ideas have emerged from the Andrews science community and how do the science of these ideas evolve in terms of questions and methods over time?

SLJ: Have you seen a book that we put together 10 years ago, Transformational Ideas?

SK: Hmm-mm, no.

SLJ: Because we were being asked this question by NSF.

SK: Okay.

SLJ: So, what are you known for? It made us think. It's a little bit dated. It's not been brought up to speed more and in that, and I'll try and dig it out and send it to you because we did a nice job of summarizing across several different disciplines.

SK: That'd be great.

SLJ: The role of wood-significant ideas are forest-stream interactions and all that means. Another one is the role of wood, deadwood in the detritus and detritus of the magnitude we see, whether it be standing or dead. Because people 01:00:00usually think of detritus as leaves and here, we think of them as big logs-how that structures an ecosystem, both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Significant ideas, we were part of some major significant ideas that I don't think we can take credit for, but that we were part of, whether it be some of the International Biological Program budgeting, ecosystem budgeting that we were in on. We were part of the coniferous site but there were other sites around the country and something that came out of those early interactions of working across sites was the River Continuum Concept and thinking of streams as more than just a study reach and thinking about streams through landscapes and predictable patterns. I think some of our work on biogeochemistry has been 01:01:00influential because we're kind of a unique, low-nitrogen system that many researchers have studied and modeled and thought about the role of disturbances and thought about why and what. Biogeochemistry specifically how an ecosystem functions with such low nitrogen has been a question and it's an idea that's emerged. I've had quite a lot of hydrologic research and some of the other sites. We're part of an LTER network, but we're also part of a [US Forest Service] Experimental Forest network. Are you familiar with the experimental forests?

SK: Yeah.

SLJ: A bunch of them have long-term hydrologic experiments like we do. There's 01:02:00been some sharing of ideas, because I tend not to be a person that says oh, we're the best and it's all of us, it's all of us. I think it's good to be humble and note that ideas are often formed through sharing. The idea of the influence of forest management on hydrology has been a big area of study and we've really contributed to that science and to the modeling of what happens when you harvest trees and you get these pulses of water and when is that water coming off and then over successional time you can get a decrease and when is that important? What season of the years and seasonality questions, so that aspect of forest-stream interactions or making water available, water quality 01:03:00and quantity. More recently I think people have been really focused on microclimate and diversity of microhabitats, which we're calling microclimate but microhabitat is another way to think about it. How they've evolved I think I would go back to that they evolved in discussion, in collaboration, in exploration, not only at our site but other sites.

SK: There's a cross-pollination of ideas within the site and within the greater communities and networks of the sites engaged with it.

SLJ: I think it's cross-pollination within and across. Scientists tend to forget 01:04:00how much we cross-pollinate. They tend to think of ideas as just their own or that they've discovered something. But I see a lot of commonality across ideas.

SK: Great. Okay, so my concluding question is what do you see is the principles and motivating forces that drive the Andrews as a community?

SLJ: I think we've probably first have to define what is a community?

SK: Right.

SLJ: Are we thinking LTER community? Are we thinking of people who work at the Andrews? Are we thinking of people who work there presently or over time? I know what we try to think about as a motivating force. It'd be interesting to see what other researchers who maybe aren't quite as involved as I am at the Andrews 01:05:00would say, but trying to have a motivating force of honest collaborative research that is trying to-open sharing of ideas, which is collaborative, but we don't always get there. The idea that it's important to respect, as a principle, to do the best science we can independent from our own biases would ideally be a principle of what we're trying to do. Motivating force? I think the Andrews does have some prestige in its various communities and so for some folks that is a 01:06:00motivating force. I've heard it from some of our younger scientists that they want to be associated with the Andrews because of that prestige, but then what does that mean? How do we honor the legacy of the previous researchers who worked so hard to have the Andrews be a center of very solid research, solid, useful research that isn't working to address community questions, working with managers, working on theoretical questions as well as issues involved in forest management, because that really harkens back to our roots of being set up to answer specific forest management questions, but being open to new ideas.

I used to see the Andrews as a very solid community and then being in that community now for 20-some years I see it dispersed, a dispersed community also, which is fun to see people at meetings who have a history at the Andrews that I may have not had, overlapped with them even, but yet we have a shared history. There's that kind of a community. There's the social community of it that is also strong, at least it's especially strong because some of the stream people and the personalities involved. They've really worked to have it be a community, 01:08:00an aquatic community with fairly porous boundaries.

SK: Wonderful. Awesome. Are there any final, concluding statements that you would like to make before we end the interview today?

SLJ: I appreciate your effort to dive into this and look at some of these and ask these probing questions. I think it's fun that you're doing that and I look forward to seeing what you synthesize out of all these disparate ideas. Can I ask who else you're talking to?

SK: Yes. I talked to Richard Waring, Fred Swanson, and I'm going to be talking to Mark Harmon and Julia Jones. That's who I have set up for now.

SLJ: Okay. Anyone else?

SK: That's it for now.

SLJ: We're kind of the old guard. You don't have many young voices in there.

SK: Mm-mm, no. Not at the moment.

SLJ: Okay. As long as you recognize that. As long as that's one of your founding conditions, this is who I talked to, because some of the younger folks might say oh that's not how I think or oh yeah that's how I think.

SK: Yeah. The inter-generational perspectives.

SLJ: Yeah. You actually are kind of getting some generational, because I think Dick Waring had already retired by the time I arrived.

SK: Mm-hmm.

SLJ: Maybe he was just retiring.

SK: Right.

SLJ: I replaced Fred. Fred was moving on to social dynamics and Reflections type things once I was hired. And Julia and I are kind of more the current folks. Harmon is more in the middle. You're getting a bit of it.

SK: A little bit. I guess maybe with the few minutes left of just curious-I don't have this on my questionnaire, but something that I've also been curious about is the LTER Reflections Program. Has that presence infiltrated the philosophy of science at all? Has that had an influence? I'm curious.

SLJ: Maybe this part of it can be off the record.

SK: Sure. I'm going to conclude.